Brexit

A moderate, halfway-competent Labour party could crush the Tories. But given that Labour members are Corbynite in inclination, what are the chances of a moderate leader emerging? In my latest Daily Telegraph column, I argue that to change leader now in order to make Labour the party of Remain might well make this even worse for Labour – and create an opportunity for the Tories. The Morten Morland cover image we ran a few weeks ago – Corbyn depicted as a scarecrow being picked apart by the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats – has come to pass. The Brexit crisis has started to polarise voters, with many moving to the Brexit Party and the Lib Dems. Labour and the Tories are suffering badly.

The heady drama when Britain and the EU agreed on a series of Brexit extensions earlier this year is hard to forget. But amidst the chaos, it's worth asking: did Britain accidentally leave the EU on 1 June? A badly-drafted EU law – which also challenges the idea of EU competence – seems to suggest so. So how did this apparent blunder happen? And why has no one noticed? When Article 50 timed out on 29 March 2019, the UK and the EU agreed to extend to 12 April. When an extension is made it has to be done in both EU law and UK law. On that occasion, it was: both sides managed to pass proper laws. The EU one is here. As we know, another extension was then sought, and that's where the trouble begins. The UK again drafted our extension properly.

In the forthcoming edition of The Spectator, we have an interview with Boris Johnson. You can read the whole interview with Katy Balls and myself from tomorrow morning, but one bit that particularly struck me was his language on the Irish border. Boris Johnson is returning to the position of challenging the Irish and the EU to put up border posts in the event of no deal. Here’s the exchange Can I ask you about the Irish border, can you foresee any circumstances where you would build …? Boris Johnson: No, no. So there is a lot of confusion about this point and so the only way there will be an Irish border is if the Irish government built it because there are no circumstances in which a British government led by you would ever build infrastructure in that way?

Silence has befallen French pronouncements on Brexit. Le Monde’s vitriolic editorial (12 June 2019) on Boris Johnson apart, the scene is remarkably calm. But this isn't good news. In fact, such silence is often a sign of French anxiety and a presage to trouble, particularly when Britain is concerned. As rationalists, the French are frequently frustrated by the ‘wait and see’ of the empirical British. ‘What is not clear is not French’, said the 18th century French philosopher Antoine de Rivarol.

Who will replace Jean-Claude Juncker? That's the question being decided at the European Council summit. But so far, things are not going to plan. From Sunday afternoon, leaders – along with Theresa May, who promised to be “constructive” in the debate – have been discussing who should take over the most senior EU jobs, including the successor to Juncker as European Commission president. Now, the meeting has been suspended until tomorrow without any decision made. Whoever takes over will do so at a key time in the Brexit process.

There has been a lot of talk about how Article XXIV of GATT can provide an alternative to the Withdrawal Agreement. But here’s the deal with Article XXIV of GATT: it is a solution to a problem which is not the problem. Let me try to illustrate this with a story. Imagine a couple – let’s call them Joe and Angela – who are going through a divorce. After a long-drawn process, and hundreds of billable hours, their lawyers have at last produced a draft divorce settlement. The successful business that Joe and Angela have built will continue, but Joe will need to make a series of maintenance payments to Angela and the family home will be sold. Joe finds this difficult to accept but he is also desperate to move on with his life.

This weekend, the most popular political party in Britain will hold a rally in Birmingham to plan its march to Westminster. The Brexit party came first in the European elections but to its supporters, this was just the warm-up. If today’s polls became tomorrow’s election result, then the Tories would be left with just 87 MPs, barely a quarter of their current strength. Nigel Farage would lead an army of 193 MPs, and doing such damage that Jeremy Corbyn would still hang on to a party of 234. It is scenario that is terrifying the Tories – and delighting the Farigistas. In Birmingham tomorrow, the party aims to unveil the first 100 of their would-be MPs, part of Farage’s plan to fight every single seat in the next general election.

The New York Times’s strange jihad against post-Brexit Britain continues. Some readers may have missed the paper’s insistence that having only just finished eating mutton, the British public are currently stock-piling food and all but preparing to start eating each other (see here, here, and here just for starters).  But yesterday they have returned to the fray with the international edition of the paper carrying a front-page piece declaring ‘Extremists hijacked UK politics’.  The online version of the story is headlined ‘A fanatical sect has hijacked British politics’.