Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Robert Peston

Why Tories are tempted by Justine Greening’s second referendum

When an influential centre-right Tory, who has served in May's cabinet, says that the prime ministers' Brexit plan is the "worst of both worlds" and a "fudge I cannot support", it is clear beyond doubt that the PM's most important policy is in trouble. For Justine Greening, the proposal to follow EU rules for the production and consumption of goods and food, and to collect tariffs for the EU, is neither properly leaving the EU or a rational "softer" Brexit. What she says she fears, in an article for the Times, is parliament rejecting May's plan, but finding it completely impossible to force through a more satisfactory relationship with the EU. So - and this is something of a shock - she has come round to the idea that there should be a further referendum.

Sunday

Katy Balls

Will Theresa May make it to the summer recess?

Will Theresa May make it to the summer recess? It's just over a week until Parliament breaks up for the long summer break yet the obstacles the Prime Minister must overcome before then are rapidly increasing in size. After May finally showed her Brexit hand, she has seen a growing Eurosceptic rebellion which shows no signs of letting up anytime soon. Over the weekend, her former minister Steve Baker accused No 10 of being part of a secret plot to render the Brexit department a 'Potemkin structure to [distract from] what the Cabinet Office Europe unit was doing for the prime minister'. Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg offered a memorable soundbite – telling the Sunday Politics that May was a 'Remainer who has remained a Remainer'.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Theresa May’s hard-headed Brexit

Theresa May: People voted from the heart, but I must be hard-headed After an outbreak of discontent in the Conservative party over her Chequers Brexit plan, the Prime Minister took to the Andrew Marr Show to defend her policy. The plan led to David Davis and Boris Johnson quitting the cabinet, and there are rumours that more ministers could follow in the coming days. There is also the possibility that May could face a vote of no confidence in her leadership at any point. Marr asked her if the Chequers Agreement was letting her party and the country down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Rp6DcB59I AM: There are an awful lot of Conservatives...

Katy Balls

Theresa May fights for her premiership – and reveals Trump’s advice

Theresa May appeared on the Andrew Marr sofa with her premiership at its most vulnerable point since the disastrous snap election. After a week of frontbench resignations, a US Presidential visit that resulted in humiliation, a growing eurosceptic rebellion and a downturn in the polls, May belatedly tried to sell her Brexit blueprint to the public. The Prime Minister began by attempting some honesty – she told Marr that she did accept that the position agreed at Chequers last Friday was different to what was set out in her Lancaster House speech. However, she insisted that the change was minimal and that competitive free trade deals were still possible – she refused to explicitly say that the common rulebook would make trade deals harder to forge.

Charles Moore

The irreplaceable Lord Carrington

Lord Carrington, who has just died, may well have been longer in public life than any non-royal person ever. He took his seat in the House of Lords in 1946 (having already won the MC at Nijmegen in 1944), and never really retired until ill health confined him 70 years later. Hereditary privilege, I suppose, put him in; but what kept him there, giving him office under six prime ministers, as well as making him high commissioner to Australia, secretary-general of Nato etc? The obvious answer would be that, as someone who could not be elected, he was like the eunuch in the seraglio. Certainly prime ministers were disposed to trust him, in part because they knew he couldn’t have their job. Certainly, too, he had a strong sense of public service.

Saturday

Rod Liddle

Matthew Parris is right: Theresa May’s Brexit plan is terrible

On Brexit and the visit of Donald Trump, there has not been a better article than this by Matthew Parris in The Times today. I make him right on every point and, given that we view Brexit from polarised positions, that makes it a little worrying. But the so-called 'yellow paper' really does give us the worst of all worlds and makes us, as he rightly says, a satellite of the EU. We might take some issue with his concluding sentence, I suppose, regarding becoming a satellite of the USA. But everything else is bang on. Why don’t the Remainers in general see that?

James Forsyth

Three things that Theresa May can do to try and avert a political disaster

If Theresa May gets a Brexit deal and it can’t get through parliament, then we are heading towards the most dangerous political crisis in living memory, I say in The Sun this morning. For I very much doubt that the 80 percent of MPs who are opposed to no deal, would let Britain leave without an agreement. But disregarding the result of the referendum—either by abandoning Brexit or leaving only to make Britain, effectively, a non-voting member of the EU—would cause a democratic shock. 17.4 million voters would be, understandably, furious about having their vote ignored. So, what can Mrs May do to avert this disaster? Well, I think there are three things she should do. First, she should start treating voters and her own MPs like adults.

Charles Moore

On Brexit, the Germans are against us

Why do the British turn to the Germans in their moments of European trouble? It never works. When Jacques Delors conceived his single currency plans, Mrs Thatcher over-relied on Karl Otto Pöhl at the Bundesbank to squash them. Dr Pöhl preferred to side with Helmut Kohl. When Britain was struggling to stay in the ERM in the late summer of 1992, the Major government put faith in what they thought were German promises to help them out. These failed to materialise. When David Cameron sought a new EU deal which would win him the 2016 referendum, he placed his greatest hopes in Angela Merkel, who offered him concessions so feeble that even he quickly gave up trying to sell them. Last week, Mrs May flew to Berlin.

Friday

Steerpike

Donald Trump is talking fake news about Brexit

In Trumpland, the truth is what you say it is. Donald Trump says he was at his golf course at Turnberry, in Scotland, the day before the Brexit vote, and that he predicted then that Brexit would happen. He told the Sun newspaper yesterday. Clearly, nobody has told him otherwise, because the President doubled down on the claim at his press conference with Theresa May this afternoon. He said: 'I was opening Turnberry the day before Brexit and all they wanted to talk about was Brexit and I said I think Brexit would happen and it did happen.'  Never mind that Donald Trump in fact cut the ribbon at Turnberry on June 24, the day after the Brexit vote. Steerpike was there. You can watch it here. You can check it anywhere.

The EU is terrified that Britain will make a success of Brexit

Now that the EU white paper is out we can see that terms like vassal state, colony and homage were well chosen and that Donald Trump’s doubts are valid. The commitment to a common rule book that includes a pledge to enforce state-aid rules is effectively promising not to try too hard to be economically successful. And yet state aid has hardly been mentioned in the debate. Freedom from the EU straitjacket gives us the chance to show how an independent people can create prosperity but instead of seizing the day the Government is worried about disrupting integrated EU supply chains, which may involve a car component being made in Italy, then taken to Germany for finishing, before being installed in a car in a UK factory.

Steerpike

Tory minister: Boris Johnson would make a terrible PM

It's all kicking off in the Conservative party. After a week of Eurosceptic rebellion, resignations and in-fighting, Theresa May has been dealt another blow to her Brexit position in the form of President Trump. The US President has used an interview with the Sun to criticise the UK Prime Minister and appear to rule out a UK/US trade deal. He also appeared to open the door to backing a successor for May – telling the paper that Boris Johnson would make a great prime minister. Alas not everyone agrees. Margot James – a DCMS minister – has taken to social media to say that, actually, her colleague would be 'terrible': https://twitter.com/margot_james_mp/status/1017659937491771392 The Conservative party, 2018.

Tom Goodenough

Jacob Rees-Mogg adds to Theresa May’s woes

Poor old Theresa May. Donald Trump’s Brexit comments have overshadowed the president’s long-awaited visit, but even after Trump departs for the golf course, her troubles won’t go away. Jacob Rees-Mogg offered an unwelcome reminder of that on the Today programme this morning, saying that he thought Trump had a point. Rees-Mogg said that all the president had done is spell out what was actually in the Brexit white paper. Take a look, he said, at this passage in the Brexit white paper: For once, it seems, Trump has actually done his reading. In his comments to the Sun, Trump made it clear that Theresa May’s Brexit plan would mean the US "would be dealing with the European Union" instead of with the UK during trade talks.

Steerpike

Watch: Nigel Farage on winding up Team Trump ahead of UK visit

President Trump's official UK visit has turned into a nightmare for Downing Street after the US President used an interview with the Sun to suggest Theresa May had wrecked Brexit and a UK/US deal could be off the table. The comments are a gift to those Brexiteers pushing for May to change course and alter her Brexit blueprint. So, is it pure coincidence Trump has taken the side of May's Brexit critics? Mr S only asks after Nigel Farage last night set the cat among the pigeons on BBC's This Week. In an interview with Andrew Neil, the Ukip leader suggested that he had been winding up Trump and his team on Brexit and was a guiding spirit behind the Sun interview: https://twitter.com/bbcthisweek/status/1017545125050773504 AN: You've also been winding up Team Trump, haven't you?

Katy Balls

Donald Trump becomes No 10’s nightmare guest

Oh dear. After some incendiary comments earlier in the week, Donald Trump has delivered a sucker punch towards Theresa May and her Brexit plan. As the Prime Minister pulled out all the stops for the US President with a black tie dinner at Blenheim Palace, the Sun published its front page – in which Trump declares that May has 'ruined' Brexit and the US/UK deal is off. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1017522456523956224 The US president goes on to add insult to injury by saying May's rival Boris Johnson would make a great Prime Minister. As for that deal, he says: 'If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal.' Trump's bad manners have made Theresa May's bad week even worse.

Thursday

Peter Jones

On good authority

Forget David Davis, Boris, the cabinet, the commentariat. It’s time to concentrate on the big picture and the central question: where does final authority lie in the UK? The ancients grappled with this problem too. In the direct, radical democracy of 5th and 4th c Athens, it lay with the male citizens meeting in assembly. Appointed officials were under constant scrutiny by the assembly, and could pay a high price for failure (including execution). Indeed, any citizen who proposed a course of action to which the assembly agreed but which turned out to be a disaster could be impeached for ‘deceiving the people’. It was no defence to say that the assembly had agreed to it. The people were sovereign. They resisted two oligarchic coups.

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 12 July 2018

Why do the British turn to the Germans in their moments of European trouble? It never works. When Jacques Delors conceived his single currency plans, Mrs Thatcher over-relied on Karl Otto Pöhl at the Bundesbank to squash them. Dr Pöhl preferred to side with Helmut Kohl. When Britain was struggling to stay in the ERM in the late summer of 1992, the Major government put faith in what they thought were German promises to help them out. These failed to materialise. When David Cameron sought a new EU deal which would win him the 2016 referendum, he placed his greatest hopes in Angela Merkel, who offered him concessions so feeble that even he quickly gave up trying to sell them. Last week, Mrs May flew to Berlin.

Helena Morrissey

Diary – 12 July 2018

Well, we did it. No, not Brexit, the World Cup or my (somewhat less) ambitious scheme at Legal & General to interest the nation in investing. Not yet at least. But we did reach the end of term — and the end of the school year. With three out of our nine children leaving their respective schools, my husband, Richard, and I have been staggering towards the finish line, with the usual sports days and summer concerts interspersed with leavers’ picnics, drinks, dinners and cricket days, all of course held in uncharacteristically glorious sunshine. On occasion we had to draft in the cavalry: one daughter took my place at the mothers-and-sons tennis tournament (a welcome substitute for the son in question, since she can actually play).

Jacob Rees-Mogg

The Brexit White Paper is a bad deal for Britain

This (Brexit White Paper) is the greatest vassalage since King John paid homage to Philip II at Le Goulet in 1200. This White Paper has not needed age to turn yellow. There are very few signs of the Prime Minister's famous red lines. It is a pale imitation of the paper prepared by David Davis, a bad deal for Britain. It is not something I would vote for, nor is it what the British people voted for. In particular, this paper sets out that the UK will be subject to EU laws while having no say in their creation. The Common Rule Book will not be Common, it will be EU law, interpreted by the EU Court with the UK subjected to EU fines for non-compliance. The UK has accepted it cannot diverge from 'ongoing harmonisation' without activating repercussions for Northern Ireland.

Katy Balls

Raab talks tough on Brexit White Paper – as Brussels responds

Dominic Raab's Commons debut as Brexit Secretary didn't go exactly as he would have hoped. He was greeted with louder heckles than normal from the Opposition owing to the fact that the Brexit white paper had not been given to MPs prior to the statement. Despite this, Raab put in a solid performance as he tried to show it was business as usual despite a turbulent week for the government which saw David Davis and Boris Johnson quit the frontbench – and a Eurosceptic rebellion brewing. The publication of the White Paper is unlikely to calm nerves. The issues that are set to stoke the most interest include the fact the government is now seeking 'association agreement' – something they appeared to previously dismiss.

Steerpike

Trump on May’s Brexit plan: ‘I don’t know if that is what they voted for’

Theresa May's Chequers' Brexit blueprint hasn't got off to the best start this week. Before the white paper has even been published, she has seen her Brexit Secretary and Foreign Secretary quit – along with a growing backbench rebellion. Now President Trump has offered his verdict – and it's not what you could call a diplomatic help: 'I am going to a pretty hot spot right now with a lot of resignations. I would say Brexit is Brexit. The people voted to break it up so I would imagine that's what they would do, but maybe they're taking a different route - I don't know if that is what they voted for.' On May's plan, Trump says it seems as though the UK is 'getting at least partially involved back with the European Union'.