Brexit

Labour’s decision to whip against the EU withdrawal bill might well have more of an impact in the Lords than the Commons. In the Commons, as I wrote on Monday, the number of Tory rebels might well be offset by Labour ones—and I suspect that Labour’s decision to whip against the bill at second reading will make it easier for the Tories to peel off Labour rebels on amendments later on. But in the House of Lords, the government doesn’t have any sort of majority. If Labour whip against it there and team up with Liberal Democrat and cross-bench peers,  the bill could end up only passing with significant amendments.

The most memorable line from David Davis’s statement on the Brexit negotiations to the Commons was his claim that ‘nobody pretended this would be simple or easy’. MPs who disagree with the Brexit Secretary loved this because quite a few people have made claims to that effect, including Davis and his colleague the International Trade Secretary Liam Fox. But in terms of any revelations to MPs, the most interesting line from the minister was that the negotiations on the divorce bill could go down to the wire. ‘My expectation is that the money argument will go on for the full duration of the negotiation,’ he told the Commons. This is

When this magazine endorsed Brexit, it did so in typically trenchant and elegant fashion. ‘Out and into the world’ we said. The central thesis of The Spectator’s case for Leave was that the European Union has become a parody of itself, a sclerotic, irredeemably unreformable, set of institutions that are, at some core, fundamental, level intrinsically incompatible with this country’s instincts, traditions, and future. Even so, that case, forceful though it was and certainly hardly without merit, still suffered from the wishful thinking that has, alas, been so typical of so many Brexiteers. Britain’s departure would, we wrote, ‘show reform-minded Europeans that theirs is not a lost cause’ though how

It’s been a busy week for Brexit, with David Davis and Michel Barnier going head-to-head in Brussels, and Theresa May and Liam Fox heading to Japan to try and kick-start a trade deal. Here’s how the week unfolded: 1. UK-Japan trade deal lined up: In spite of predictions to the contrary, Theresa May won reassurance from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Britain would benefit from a facsimile version of the trade deal being negotiated between Japan and the EU. This could be the first of a series of ‘cut and paste’ bilateral trade deals which the government wants to establish with countries which already have trade agreements with the EU –

There is a growing perception that Britain is floundering in its EU negotiations, with a professional team from Brussels running rings around our bumbling amateurs. It is an idea that is being put about by the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, who this week appealed for Britain to begin ‘negotiating seriously’. As he has found out, the strange dynamic of British public debate at present means that EU spin is repeated uncritically by those hostile to Brexit. It can seem, at times, as if we are in the grip of hysteria normally seen during the final days of an election campaign. This is not to say that the British side