Brexit

The Foreign Secretary on Today has reinforced the Prime Minister’s Grimsby warning that if she loses the meaningful vote on Tuesday it will be the EU’s fault. Hunt warns EU leaders to take care the impasse “doesn’t inject poison into our relations for many years to come” and warns that if the EU doesn’t make further backstop concessions “people will say the EU got this moment wrong”. This is a million miles from how EU leaders see the state of negotiations. According to a source they believe the “EU has already made its choice to be as helpful as possible on giving legally binding reassurances that the backstop will apply

It is becoming painfully clear that on Tuesday the House of Commons will be asked to vote on an EU withdrawal bill that is almost entirely the same as the one defeated by 230 votes in January. Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, is seeking to guarantee that Britain will never be trapped in the backstop. If he succeeds, Brexiteers, whatever their wider misgivings, should hold their noses and vote for Theresa May’s deal. It will be tempting for MPs who are seeking a proper break with the EU to repeat their rebellion. May’s deal means Britain will, for two years, be an EU member in all but name: paying all

What wonderful powers that Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, possesses. At a stroke, he has just succeeded in increasing the size of the economy by three per cent. Well, sort of. Only last November, the Bank of England claimed that a no-deal Brexit could cost the UK economy between 4.75 and 7.75 per cent of growth over a three year period, relative to what would happen under May’s deal. Yesterday, he changed his tune a little, telling the House of Lords economic affairs committee the effect of a no-deal Brexit on the UK economy in three years’ time would be between two and 3.5 per cent smaller

Sir Ivan Rogers was in conversation at the Institute for Government. This is an edited transcript of his thoughts on why no-deal isn’t a sustainable outcome, whether there should be a public inquiry into Brexit – and why, when it comes to negotiations, the difficult bit is still to come: Ivan Rogers: Once you get into the trade deal and the economic deal and then associated security and other deals, this is actually the complex bit still to come. It’s much more complex and involves much more of Whitehall, and should involve Westminster a lot more than the exercise to date. I’m not disparaging the exercise to date, but that’s solely

When will politicians learn they can’t just buy off voters? You think they would have twigged this during the EU referendum campaign when the Remain camp’s Project Fear utterly failed to sway the electorate’s feelings about the EU. Every household will be £4,300 worse off, the Treasury claimed, which a) wasn’t true and b) looked to many voters like a cynical bung designed to wean them off their Euroscepticism. Such chattering-class cluelessness was on full display in the aftermath of the referendum too. How could people in regions that have received oodles of EU cash — parts of Wales, the old industrial north of England — turn against the EU,

MPs have 10 days to pass Theresa May’s Brexit deal or calamity strikes, I say in The Sun this morning. May’s deal is far from perfect. But what will happen if it doesn’t pass is truly appalling. If May’s deal hasn’t won a Commons vote by March 12th, the Commons will vote on whether to proceed with no deal. The parliamentary arithmetic is such that no deal will almost certainly be defeated. The next day, parliament will then vote on whether to request an extension from the EU. This vote will almost certainly pass. At this point, the United Kingdom would be in the weakest position it has ever been

The myth at the heart of the ‘Corbyn project’ is that it is a grassroots movement of enthusiastic young people. This group, so the theory goes, is disgusted by free markets and longs for industries to be nationalised and collectives of workers to seize control of the means of production. Books have even been written about how the ‘young’ have ‘created a new socialism.’ But if this is true, why does a poll today reveal that support for the newly-formed centrist Independent Group predominantly come from young people? Forty-seven per cent of 18-24 year olds approve of the creation of TIG, with just 14 per cent disapproving of it. This is strange behaviour from an