Brexit

Sunday

Bruce Anderson

How the Tory party could come back to life

From our UK edition

We are living through the most dramatic period in British peacetime history since the agitations leading up to the Great Reform Bill – and, irrespective of Brexit, there is more to come. The UK is about to experience a revolution in government. This will take one of three forms. There could be a chassis revolution, as in 'The world's in a terrible state of chassis.' If the Government were forced into an early election, with the Brexit party on one flank and the Liberals on the other, Parliament would be hung beyond hope of stability. It is reasonable to describe the prospect of such chaos without foreseeable end as revolutionary. There could also be a more orthodox revolution, if Jeremy Corbyn gained power.

Andrew Marr

A no-confidence vote might help Boris Johnson

From our UK edition

I am up on the far north-west coast of Scotland, where the weather is changing every five minutes under vast skies and huge seascapes. Go to the beach and look left, and it’s a sparkling Mediterranean scene, bright white sand and opalescent turquoise water, what you might call Rossini weather. Swivel your gaze right, and vast dark clouds tower up, obliterating mountain ranges — Bruckner weather. Me? Like Isabel Hardman, of this parish, I just walk straight into the sea and swim. The choppy water is certainly cold but the whole experience is elating, and good for clearing the head. Which is, of course, what we need this summer. August politics is changing faster than the August skies, and this autumn looks set to be the most politically dramatic in my lifetime.

Lloyd Evans

Meet the Brexit party’s secret weapon: a stand-up comedian

From our UK edition

He looks nothing like a financial expert. Moneyweek journalist, Dominic Frisby, has a huge Santa beard and he dresses like a funeral director from a Roald Dahl fantasy: a top hat, a white shirt with wing-collars and a flowing silk cravat. As a gesture of solidarity with the gilets jaunes he sports a bright yellow high-vis waistcoat as well. I meet him at the Edinburgh festival just after he finishes his stand-up show, Libertarian Love Songs. Frisby has recently been adopted as a parliamentary candidate for the Brexit party and he’s keen to parade his skills as a financial commentator rather than as a clown: ‘I got interested in politics after I started investing in gold in the early noughties. And gold is a very political investment because it used to be money.

Saturday

Augustus Howard

The cosmic combination of Hong Kong, Brexit and the trade war

Over the past several months, we have witnessed remarkable courage in the streets of Hong Kong. What began as limited protest against a single act of pro-Beijing legislation now has the markings of existential struggle, if not revolution. As the people of Hong Kong understand, the city government’s proposed extradition bill — enabling removal of its citizens to mainland China for trial — was not an isolated event. It was, instead, a sign of things to come, the gradual encroachment of Beijing upon the rights and freedoms promised Hong Kong for 50 years in the 1997 Basic Law. These constitutional guarantees — negotiated with the United Kingdom before it transferred the city — have come steadily under attack as the clock ticks ineluctably towards midnight.

hong kong
Charles Moore

What would George Orwell make of Brexit?

From our UK edition

In the London Review of Books this month, James Meek wrote a long article about Jacob Rees-Mogg and his ‘curious duality’ in being both a high Catholic, fogey Brexiteer and a founder of Somerset Capital Management, which the author sees as globalist and ruthless. The piece is elegantly done, but entirely sneery. It makes not the slightest attempt to enter into the Mogg’s (or any Brexiteer’s) mind with any sympathy. I was thinking about this because the LRB’s publicity emphasised that Meek is an Orwell Prize winner. How we need an Orwell on the subject of Brexit.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Stop thinking Merkel will save us, Dominic Cummings warns

From our UK edition

Is Boris Johnson more likely to get a Brexit deal after his meetings with Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron? The Prime Minister today tried to dampen hopes, saying that while the 'mood music' had been 'very good' during his meetings with the two leaders this week, it was still going to be hard to persuade the EU to give way. Speaking during a visit to Devon, Johnson said: 'This is not going to be a cinch, this is not going to be easy. We will have to work very hard to get this thing done.' Much of the week has been spent trying to work out what various comments and bits of body language really mean. Was Johnson celebrating successful talks or just having a stretch when he arrived back in Downing Street after his meetings?

Matthew Lynn

Macron’s no-deal Brexit gamble could backfire

From our UK edition

The ‘Non’ was not quite as frosty as it might have been. When Boris Johnson met up with France’s president Emmanuel Macron there were at least some pictures of the two men talking amicably. Even so, while Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and some of the EU’s other leaders have at least left the door a tiny bit open to renegotiating the UK’s departure from the EU, Macron made it clear it was almost completely shut. In fact, Macron is making almost as big a bet as Johnson. His calculation is that a no-deal Brexit will work to France’s advantage. Yet he may well have mis-calculated – and it could easily drive his own economy into recession.

Steerpike

Brexit poetry competition: Winner announced

From our UK edition

The time has come to announce the winner of our much-lauded Brexit poetry competition. Earlier this week, we called on our good readers to provide us with a poem to commemorate the UK's exit from the European Union on 31 October. Our announcement came in response to the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage saying that he had 'no plans' to pen a piece for Brexit day. The winning poem was short and sweet. Step forward, MrToad76: Brexit, Brexit Just get on with it. The judges were impressed by MrToad76's delicate balance between brevity and passion.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: civil servants have ruined our trains

From our UK edition

Travelling in discomfort Sir: I don’t agree with much of what Matthew Parris says these days, but he was spot on with his piece about train seats (‘Who’s to blame for my terrible journey?’, 17 August). I think his hunch about where the blame lies for such uncomfortable seats is correct. In these parts, our train service provider is GWR, which has introduced new trains with bum-numbingly unforgiving seats that are wholly unsuited to typical journeys of four to five hours. When questioned, the always helpful staff respond that: ‘This is what happens when you get civil servants to design the trains.’ To add insult to injury, the new GWR trains also have no buffet carriages. Instead there is an elusive, poorly stocked trolley.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: back to the backstop, PC Harper’s death and the wrong kind of lightning

From our UK edition

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, wrote to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, saying: ‘The backstop cannot form part of an agreed withdrawal agreement. That is a fact that we must both acknowledge.’ Mr Tusk said that those who opposed the Irish backstop ‘in fact support re-establishing a border. Even if they do not admit it’. Mr Johnson, after an hour of failing to agree with Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, on the telephone, prepared for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France. An atmosphere of plotting hung over prospects of an election on a date close to 31 October, when the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union.

The Spectator

To get a deal Boris needs to show (or fake) some humility

From our UK edition

There were many Brexiteers who were urging Boris Johnson to travel to Washington before he went anywhere else, to underline that Britain’s most important relationship is with the United States. And if the EU felt nervous seeing the UK cosy up to America, so much the better. But the Prime Minister’s first visit was to Berlin, and then to Paris, to see if a Brexit deal can be negotiated and the needless disruption of a no-deal exit avoided. It seems, at present, a rather long shot. Theresa May famously said little in one-to-one meetings with European leaders. Boris Johnson can be a lot more forthright, and should speak with candour about his own lack of room for manoeuvre.

David Gunnlaugsson

Why Britain, like Iceland, will thrive outside the EU

From our UK edition

I have no doubt that Britain will thrive after leaving the EU, whether or not it leaves with a deal. I say this as a former prime minister of a country, Iceland, which left the EU before it had even joined — and which went on to prosper in a way which would have been impossible had its application for membership been carried through to conclusion. I think Britain can learn from Iceland’s experience and find a way to avoid any major disruption when 31 October comes round. In late 2008 Iceland suffered especially harshly from the international financial crisis. The country’s banking system experienced a near-total collapse. The value of the currency tumbled, inflation surged, government debt as a percentage of GDP more than tripled in an instant.

Martin Vander Weyer

Why you can’t let Brexit affect your life

From our UK edition

A couple with a first baby sought my advice: they had accepted a low offer for their cramped London flat and bid the asking price for a nice house in commuterland. But they need a bigger mortgage and if Brexit leads to a property crash, they could face negative equity and financial stress. Should they call the whole thing off? Emphatically I said they should not: buying a family home is a long-term choice, rarely regretted, in which fluctuating value matters far less than whether you love the house and whether (as in their case, I gathered) income is sufficient to support the mortgage. Conventional wisdom, perhaps, but I’m pleased to see the nation thinking the same way: the property website Rightmove reports a 6.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

France says no deal now the most likely Brexit outcome. But why now?

From our UK edition

Why would French government officials brief that they think it most likely Britain will leave the European Union without a deal? Boris Johnson hasn't even made it as far as his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, and is only just being welcomed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. So why brief that out now, before the leaders have even spoken? The comments appear to be part of the briefing war between European leaders and the British government, with neither side wanting to take the blame for any fallout from a no-deal Brexit.

Robert Peston

Boris Johnson’s Brexit opponents are playing into his hands

From our UK edition

There is arguably the most important conflict raging in the Tory party since Churchill replaced Chamberlain as PM in 1940. Although we are living through 1940 in reverse, because Johnson is already the self-defined "war-time" PM, the wannabe Churchill, when some of his colleagues want something and perhaps someone else. Forget the battle between government and opposition, what matters most right now is the fight between Boris Johnson and his consigliere Dominic Cummings on one hand against a minority of senior Conservative MPs led by Philip Hammond, David Gauke and Greg Clark – the so-called Gaukeward Squad – over whether a no-deal Brexit is preferable to a Brexit delay.

Steerpike

Is the EU to blame for football’s daft new handball rule?

From our UK edition

It’s not often Mr S jumps to the defence of the EU, but he is prepared to make an exception. A new handball rule in football caused controversy over the weekend after a last-minute goal by Manchester City was ruled out. The reason? City player Aymeric Laporte was judged to have lightly touched the ball following a video check. So who’s to blame for the stringent new rule that cost the Premier League champions victory in their game against Tottenham? The EU, according to football manager Ian Holloway: ‘I don’t think that’s our boys making up that new change of law. I think that’s people telling us what we should do with our game. Now, they should stop doing that.

Tuesday

Alistair Burt

A no-deal Brexit isn’t worth the risk

From our UK edition

The heightened rhetoric of the past few days, from talk of collaborators, saboteurs and government of national unity, prompt me to set out what I believe are today’s risks, from one who voted to Remain in the EU, but has accepted the result and voted accordingly in Parliament to leave with a deal ever since. Let me deal with the balance of risks as I see them, saying clearly that this is my opinion, and that there are others contrary to mine. But I’m telling you what I think and why. Firstly, no deal is economically damaging to the U.K. The publication in the Sunday Times of the Government's own document on potential effects, ‘Operation Yellowhammer’, suggests a rational awareness of what could happen.

John Keiger

Emmanuel Macron could be Boris Johnson’s Brexit saviour

From our UK edition

One thing on which Remainers and Brexiteers can agree is that Brexit delayed is Brexit denied. The government continues to proclaim that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October with or without a deal. But No. 10 is acutely sensitive to the possibility of a parliamentary manoeuvre designed to compel the executive, through legislation, to seek a further extension of Article 50 to delay Brexit yet again. But Boris Johnson should keep calm about this prospect, for an unlikely saviour – the president of France, Emmanuel Macron – could come to his rescue. Whatever Brexit extension legislation Parliament might push through, any further extension of Article 50 requires unanimous EU Council of Ministers’ support.

Isabel Hardman

No. 10 hits back in the backstop blame game

From our UK edition

The stand-off between Downing Street and the European Union over Boris Johnson's latest proposal for the backstop boils down to a disagreement over whether the British government really cares about getting a Brexit deal at all. When Donald Tusk rejected Johnson's plan today, he all but accused him of being set on a no-deal exit, saying: 'The backstop is an insurance to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland unless and until an alternative is found. Those against the backstop and not proposing realistic alternatives in fact support re-establishing a border. Even if they do not admit it.

Steerpike

Jo Swinson riles up Corbynistas again

From our UK edition

Corbynistas are out to get Jo Swinson again after the Lib Dem leader accused Jeremy Corbyn of being a Brexiteer. 'Jeremy Corbyn didn't fight to remain in 2016, and he won't fight for remain now', said Swinson. It wasn't long before the usual suspects leapt to the Labour leader's defence. Step forward, Owen Jones: 'This is a direct lie. It's a matter of public record that Jeremy Corbyn campaigned for Remain,' according to the Guardian columnist. But Mr S isn't so sure. In the weeks before the 2016 referendum, Corbyn was asked 'how passionate are you about staying in the EU?'. Corbyn's response? 'Oh I’d put myself in the upper half of the ten, so we’re looking at seven, seven-and-a-half. Maybe seven...' Hardly a ringing endorsement.