Brexit

You can see why Theresa May locked her Chancellor up in a cupboard during the general election campaign. Not only was his credibility shot in his bungled Budget, where he seemed not to realise that his plan to raise National Insurance violated the manifesto upon which he was elected, but he’s now still seeking to undermine his colleagues on Brexit. The UK position is clear: yes, we’d like a good deal with the EU but if one is not forthcoming then we’d walk away and use the default World Trade Organisation rules. Hardly a leap into the unknown; the WTO rules govern the UK trade with our largest single partner, the United

Many in Brussels are anxiously looking out for any sign of what has been termed ‘Brexit contagion’ – the idea that the Brits might encourage others towards leaving the EU. The findings of a major Pew survey of European opinion does not point to a rush towards the exit, but it certainly does flag up dissatisfaction with the EU and its handling of many of the most pressing issues facing the continent.  Take, for example, trade policy: should a country set its own alliances or leave it to the EU? This is, in effect, a question about the Customs Union – staying in this union is often taken to define

Normally after an election, the leader of the party that came second comes to the first meeting of their parliamentary party and promises an inquiry into what went wrong. As Katy reported from the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting last night, no such thing happened when Jeremy Corbyn spoke to MPs. He received a standing ovation from all but two members, and the tone of the meeting was very much about how well Labour had done.  This is the dominant narrative: that Labour basically won the election by gaining seats, and the Tories lost it even though they remain the largest party. Politically, of course, Theresa May has lost: it was

What is Labour’s policy on Brexit? No one has ever really known the answer to this question, and it doesn’t seem to be any closer to being resolved now that the election is out of the way, either. Sir Keir Starmer yesterday attacked the government for ‘simply sweeping options off the table before they even started with the negotiations’, including saying Britain will not seek to be a member of the Single Market. But Jeremy Corbyn has said in the past few days that Brexit ‘absolutely’ means leaving the single market – a stance echoed by John McDonnell. The party is now trying to work out how to unite after

The reshuffle might be over, but the government is still changing shape. It has emerged that George Bridges has quit as a Brexit minister. He was highly rated by David Davis, his erstwhile boss, and had established himself as one of the most able ministers in the government – precisely the sort of person they can’t really afford to lose at this time. So why has he walked out now? We are only given a diplomatic answer: he’d been contemplating moving on for some time, and it seemed like a good time. If this rationale sounds familiar it’s precisely the formula that Katie Perrior deployed when she quit as Theresa May’s communications chief

Senior figures in Europe have spent the last few days pondering how Theresa May’s bungled election gamble will affect the upcoming Brexit negotiations. To the surprise of many, May, who campaigned to remain in the EU, had apparently set the UK on course for a hard Brexit, which involved leaving the single market behind. There was also the famous line that: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’. Now though, May’s botched election leaves a question mark over her Brexit strategy. These shifting political sands have not gone unnoticed on the continent, where politicians and bureaucrats are sharpening their pencils ahead of the start of Brexit negotiations. Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung today reports

So now we know: Jeremy Corbyn is a counterrevolutionary. The man who fancies himself as the secret Red of British politics, surrounding himself with trustafarian Trotskyists and the kind of public-school radical who gets a hammer-and-sickle tattoo just to irritate his parents, is now being talked up as a potential saviour of the establishment from Brexit. From Guardian scribes to actual EU commissioners, the great and good want Corbyn to save their hides from that raucous revolt of last June. You couldn’t make it up: Jez the tamer of the agitating masses. No sooner had those exit polls revealed that May was struggling and Corbyn was rising than the EU-pining