Columns

It is sometimes tempting to imagine that the Brexit negotiations will follow the course of a Sunday night TV drama: weeks of suspense, then everything is miraculously resolved with five minutes to go. Last December’s agreement was a case in point. Theresa May turned up to see Jean-Claude Juncker, the Commission President, expecting to do a deal; then the Irish border hit and the whole process seemed in danger. But the Prime Minister made a pre-dawn dash to Brussels just four days later and a deal was done. This has all added to Westminster’s sense that, ultimately, everything will be alright on the night. This means Westminster is underestimating the danger of the negotiations failing. In December, problems could be postponed.

The Tories’ great worry after the last election was that they had effectively vaccinated the electorate against Jeremy Corbyn. They feared that the next time they tried to show that he was extreme, weak on national security and too friendly with the West’s enemies, voters would yawn and declare that they had heard it all before. They would be immune to any attacks on the Labour leader. Compounding this worry was the fear that Corbyn would present himself, as he had quite successfully during the general election campaign, as a more mainstream figure than he really is. If Corbyn had followed this ‘kindly grandad’ approach, the Conservatives would be in deep trouble right now. Labour’s moderates would also lack any obvious cause for complaint.

Britain’s imperial past distorts the debate about our place in the world, but not in the way that is commonly assumed. It is often asserted that claims about this country’s international importance are a form of nostalgia. It would be more accurate to say that Britain tends to underestimate its power because it is no longer the global hegemon. Britain might not be, in 1066 and All That terms, ‘top nation’ any more. On any objective reading, however, the United Kingdom is still an influential global player. It is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the sixth largest economy in the world, a nuclear weapons state, a member of the world’s most powerful intelligence agreement and a cultural superpower.

The case for Labour moderates leaving their party strengthens by the day. Jeremy Corbyn’s behaviour demonstrates that he is not going to change. His decision to attend a Seder with Jewdas, a fringe group who have claimed that the anti-Semitism scandal is being whipped up by his political opponents, shows how determined he is to stay in his own comfort zone. A poll showing that 80 per cent of Labour members think he’s doing a good job as leader highlights how impossible it would be to remove him. But a more interesting question than whether Labour moderates should go is what they should do once they have. One option would be to set themselves up as the Labour party-in-exile.

One of the mistakes Theresa May made in calling an early election was not anticipating the effect it would have on the Labour party. Up until April 2017, Labour had been noisily divided between the parliamentary party — the vast majority of whom had no confidence in its leadership — and Jeremy Corbyn whom they couldn’t remove because he had the backing of the membership. But the snap election changed this dynamic. Corbyn’s internal opponents nearly all went quiet once the campaign was announced. This wasn’t just tribal loyalty asserting itself. They wanted to make sure that Corbyn failed on his own terms — that there could be no stab-in-the-back narrative. They also felt there was little risk in keeping schtum.

Theresa May’s Home Office record is normally off limits at cabinet. But when ministers discussed the government’s strategy for reducing violent crime on Tuesday, Boris Johnson took issue with what the Prime Minister regards as one of her key legacies: the dramatic reduction in stop and search. He argued that more stop and search was needed to deal with a spike in crime. What went unsaid — but what every-one around the cabinet table was acutely aware of — was that this was the opposite of Mrs May’s approach as Home Secretary. The exchange was pointed. ‘They irritate each other,’ one cabinet minister observed to me afterwards. They also have form on these matters.