Brexit

Just a few weeks ago, the Conservatives triumphed in the local government elections and Theresa May was hailed as an all-conquering Brexit Boudicca who could do no wrong. Now, after her general election humiliation, an opposite view has taken hold: that the government is a disaster, the country is in an irredeemable mess, Brexit has been derailed and nothing can go right. This is a sign that parliamentary recess is overdue; a great many people are -exhausted and a little emotional. But the facts, for those with an eye to see them, do not give grounds for such pessimism. The Tories have lost their majority and deserved to do so after an awful campaign.

Ken Loach is no fan of Brexit. The veteran filmmaker and Corbynista luvvie warned last year that the referendum was a 'dangerous, dangerous moment' for the country. Now, Loach is dishing out even more doom and gloom, saying that leaving the EU could mean bad news for the British film industry. Loach said that a messy Brexit deal might lead to directors thinking they would 'not bother' making films in Britain. Loach also said that if freedom of movement stops, life could get trickier for moviemakers. Mr S thinks that someone should tell Loach's friend: Jeremy Corbyn. After all, the Labour leader has promised that freedom of movement will end after Brexit if he becomes PM.

It is a mark of Britain’s estrangement from the European Union - and, at least for now, the country’s diminished standing on the international stage - that although Theresa May attended a memorial service to Helmut Kohl at the weekend, she was not invited to speak. Of course there are hierarchies of closeness on such occasions, but there is something piercing about the manner in which what this country, and its leaders, have to say now has so little resonance.  Kohl’s death should have occasioned more commentary in this country than it has. By any reasonable estimation, he was a titan of modern European history.

Michael Gove: The DUP deal is good for the union The newly installed Environment Secretary Michael Gove took to Andrew Marr's sofa today to defend the government's deal with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland. Controversial for awarding the province an additional £1 billion, Gove rejected the idea that deal this amounted to a ‘bung’, and argued that far from dividing the country, the ‘confidence and supply’ deal would serve to strengthen the United Kingdom: Marr: Can we at least determine that there is not going to be another... large about of money paid to the DUP? Because [Sir Nicholas] MacPherson, the former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury said ‘they'll be back for more’.

People like Philip Hammond say that we must at all costs avoid a ‘cliff-edge’ in the Brexit negotiations. But the more dangerous cliff-edge is the political one. If, having voted to Leave, we do so in name but not in fact, the elites will have frustrated the ballot box, and faith in the democratic process will plunge to its death. This is Holmes versus Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Just now, Moriarty has the upper hand. But remember that Holmes survived, because Conan Doyle had to revive him — by popular demand.

Jeremy Corbyn is 'almost a proper chap', says Nigel Farage, lauding the Labour leader for sacking frontbenchers who voted for a Commons motion seeking to keep Britain in the Single Market. That's a policy that, one suspects, quite a few recent middle-class metropolitan converts to Corbynism would agree with. Perhaps Mr Farage's praise will help them see that JC isn't quite the prophet of pro-European liberalism some of his admirers have somehow managed to imagine him as.  The Farage praise will doubtless appall many Corbynistas, who see him as the antichrist, the nasty, xenophobic antithesis of their cuddly, inclusive and not-at-all anti-Semitic messiah. It shouldn't, though, since Jeremy and Nigel have always had a lot in common.

Ever since the general election Nicola Sturgeon has lurked in her tent, contemplating the future. The result of that election, in which the SNP’s share of the vote fell by 13 points and in which it lost 21 seats, demanded a period of 'reflection' from the first minister. Where does Scotland stand now? The answer, which was wearily predictable, is just where it stood before. Nicola Sturgeon emerged from her period of reflection yesterday with a simple message: nothing has changed. Sure, she talked about 'resetting' her timetable for independence, confirming that she would not this year introduce a bill at the Scottish parliament seeking the Section 30 order from the Westminster parliament that would permit a referendum to be held legally.

A political party barely known outside Northern Ireland now holds the balance of power in Parliament. Nobody saw it coming, but then that’s the new catchphrase in politics. So who are the DUP? And do they deserve the pillorying that has been coming their way since the general election catapulted them into the spotlight? I have been watching the party up close for decades. Yet while the DUP isn't always a pretty sight to behold, the party is much more complicated than the hysterical stereotyping makes out. It's true that the DUP has its roots in uncompromising unionism and religion. And for many years it was little more than a one-man’s fan club: the political extension of Ian Paisley’s hardline Free Presbyterian Church.