Brexit

Wednesday

James Forsyth

How tonight’s no confidence vote could help Theresa May

Another day, another big vote in the Commons. But as with yesterday, there is a sense in Westminster that tonight’s vote is a foregone conclusion. Theresa May is expected to win it as the DUP are still backing her, as are the ERG and no Tory second referendum types have come out against her. Now, it might seem odd that the Commons can inflict the biggest defeat on a government of the modern era, on the defining issue of the parliament on Tuesday and then affirm its confidence in that government on the Wednesday. But that is British politics right now. If this no confidence vote goes as expected, it

Steerpike

Watch: Richard Burgon turns nasty

When he first came to power, Jeremy Corbyn promised a ‘kinder’ politics and told Labour supporters to ‘treat people with respect’. But did Richard Burgon get the message? Mr S. only asks because he suspects the Labour MP and arch Corbynite won’t have won many new fans when he popped up on Channel 4 News yesterday evening in the aftermath of May’s thumping defeat in the Commons. Burgon told Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson that she would be ‘judged by history’ as a result of her party’s past coalition with the Tories: ‘The real enemies are the Conservatives. And you have aided and abetted them. to hurt working class communities

Tuesday

Steerpike

Watch: Matt Hancock’s disastrous attempt to defend Theresa May

Theresa May made history tonight by notching up the largest defeat for a sitting government in British political history. But despite 118 Tory MPs rebelling against the Government, May can still count on some of her colleagues to try and defend her. Step forward, Matt Hancock. The health secretary popped up on the BBC to trot out the PM’s Brexit plan B: go back to the Commons and listen to MPs on what they do want. Unfortunately for Hancock, his attempt to explain what happens next didn’t inspire Mr S with much confidence: Andrew Neil: They’re ruling out reopening the agreement. What do you do now? Matt Hancock: There are two

Robert Peston

May’s disastrous defeat makes a Brexit delay inevitable

There is no coming back for the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal from the scale of a defeat by 432 to 202, the worst defeat by a Government for more than a century. In all normal circumstances a Prime Minister would resign when suffering such a humiliation on their central policy – and a policy Theresa May herself said today would “set the future of this country for generation”. But these are not normal times and Theresa May is not a normal prime minister. She said tonight she would fight on – subject of course to the Commons not in effect turfing her out if it backs Jeremy Corbyn’s motion of

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May’s Brexit deal rejected by MPs by 432 to 202 votes

Theresa May’s Brexit deal has been decisively rejected by MPs who voted 432 to 202 against the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement. The Prime Minister had told MPs to back her deal or risk “letting the British people down” but politicians voted down her deal in the biggest government defeat in the Commons in British history. The previous record was by a margin of 166 votes in 1924, when the Labour minority government lost a vote by 364 votes to 198. A total of 118 Tory MPs rebelled against the Government in the crunch vote tonight. Jeremy Corbyn responded to the PM by confirming that he would table a vote of no

Isabel Hardman

Has Theresa May just revealed her Brexit plan B?

Theresa May has just finished a speech in which she made clear – without using those words – that the Government is going to lose tonight’s meaningful vote and that she is now planning for the next Commons confrontation on Brexit.  She managed to get one MP, Sir Edward Leigh, to withdraw his amendment on the basis that she was happy to work with him on ‘creative solutions’ to the backstop. She also promised that ‘the government will work harder at taking Parliament with us’ on Brexit.  But this harder work doesn’t seem to include any moves towards working with Labour on some kind of national unity movement to stop

Isabel Hardman

Labour MPs threaten to push Corbyn into supporting a second referendum

Labour MPs who want a second referendum are threatening to table their own motion calling for one next week if their frontbench fails to do so. Jeremy Corbyn is expected to call for a vote of no confidence in the government once Theresa May’s deal is defeated in the Commons this evening. The Labour leadership has refused to do this until now because it doesn’t want to hold a vote it is certain to lose, but the pressure has now grown so great for a vote that it will be extremely difficult for Corbyn to dodge it, even though the DUP have said they will stop the government from falling

Katy Balls

Bercow vs Government, Part VIII: Speaker rejects Murrison amendment

Relations between the Speaker and the government have taken yet another turn for the worse this afternoon. Ahead of tonight’s vote on Theresa May’s doomed Brexit deal, ministers had hoped that an amendment tabled by Andrew Murrison – calling for an end date on the backstop – could win backbench support and save the Prime Minister from humiliation this evening. However, John Bercow had other ideas – and did not select the amendment for the vote. Instead, Bercow selected four amendments from Labour, SNP, Edward Leigh and John Barron. This means three seemingly government friendly amendments – from Murrison, Hugo Swire and a group of Labour MPs – have been

James Kirkup

The question that Leavers and Remainers still can’t answer

Why did Britain vote for Brexit? As Parliament gazes into the abyss, the question seems worth asking, even if I don’t pretend to be able to offer a simple answer. And that’s the point, really. Britain is teetering on the brink of a grand failure of policy and politics because, insofar as anyone involved has even wondered why a majority of voters rejected Britain’s political-economic settlement in June 2016, they have generally come up with simple, shallow answers. Among No Deal Leavers, most explanations for the referendum result these days refer to “control” (especially over immigration policy) or “sovereignty” or some nebulous idea of the economic opportunities that lie in

Ross Clark

Brexiteers owe Dominic Grieve and Gina Miller a debt of gratitude

If, as seems inevitable, the Commons votes to reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal later today – thereby sparing Britain from the humiliation of being trapped in the backstop, forced to accept EU rules without having a say in them – the hero of the hour will be Dominic Grieve. Him and Anna Soubry, Nicky Morgan, Kenneth Clarke, Sarah Woolaston and a gaggle of other Remain MPs. Why? Because it was only thanks to them that the Commons is getting its meaningful vote on the Brexit deal. It was they who rebelled against the government in December 2017 to make sure that such a vote would be held. Remarkably, not a

Robert Peston

Theresa May will lose tonight but she will still cling to her Brexit deal

Theresa May will lose the vote tonight on her Brexit plan, widely seen as the most important vote in Parliament since the early years of the Second World War, and yet nothing of importance may change – or at least not immediately, at least. How can that possibly be – especially since she could well lose by a record-busting and humiliating margin of more than 100 votes? It is because she is very unlikely to acknowledge that her deal is dead, and will instead announce shortly after the defeat that she will have another go at negotiating with EU leaders to amend it so as to make it acceptable to

Monday

Imam Hoque

What might Brexit mean for the fight against money laundering?

Looking at the past year, it’s evident that 2018 saw some incredibly high-profile cases of money laundering. For offenders to operate successfully in organised criminal circles, ‘dirty’ money needs to be cleaned before it can be used. This poses a real threat to not only businesses but also to the general public, as criminal activity such as people trafficking, terrorist financing and drug dealing is funded and supported by laundered money. Prominent instances of money laundering have brought attention to the issue, and have encouraged financial institutions across Europe to tighten up their regulations and take a step in the right direction to prevent financial crime. The European Commission’s 5th

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May survives no confidence vote in the Commons

Theresa May has survived a vote of confidence in the Commons by 325 votes to 306. Tory MPs – as well as the DUP’s members – backed the Prime Minister in tonight’s crunch vote. The decisive support from the Conservative party meant that the votes of Labour, SNP and Lib Dem MPs were not enough to oust the PM. Theresa May responded to winning the vote by inviting Jeremy Corbyn to Downing Street for Brexit talks. But the Labour leader – who earlier said May was leading a ‘zombie government’ – said he would only enter into discussions if the PM ruled out a no deal Brexit.

James Forsyth

Is John Bercow preparing to pull off another procedural trick?

There has just been another series of pointed exchanges between government backbenchers and the Speaker over procedure. Following the Sunday papers and the Boles plan released earlier today, several Tory MPs sought reassurance on procedure from John Bercow. Bercow was strikingly unwilling to give it. He approvingly quoted Willie Whitelaw’s dictum that bridges are best crossed when you come to them. If Bercow’s intention was to wind up the government frontbench and Tory MPs, he certainly succeeded. When Bercow gave a lengthy reply to Kevin Brennan’s point of order about how people who act as the lickspittles of the whips’ don’t get much respect, one minister heckled. Bercow then went

Isabel Hardman

May’s new Brexit pitch: my bad deal is better than no deal

If you’re a not particularly impressive leader of a political party preparing a response to any statement given by Theresa May, the easiest phrase that you can lazily reach for is ‘nothing has changed’. You know it will apply to anything the Prime Minister says about how she has improved her Brexit deal.  All three main party leaders appeared to conform to those easy predictions this afternoon. Theresa May stood up and tried to convince MPs that she had secured important changes to the deal that meant they should support it tomorrow. Jeremy Corbyn replied that nothing had changed and that there should be a general election, while Ian Blackford

Isabel Hardman

John Bercow steps up his battle with ministers

John Bercow clearly isn’t backing down in his stand-off with ministers. Today he opened a new front in the House of Commons, taking aim at the government for refusing to allow MPs who are pregnant or on maternity leave to have a proxy vote. The issue came up when Harriet Harman made a point of order about her colleague Tulip Siddiq, who has had to postpone the caesarean section for her baby so that she can vote tomorrow. Harman asked the Speaker whether he could give the Hampstead and Kilburn MP a proxy vote, but Bercow replied that this was not something he was able to do himself. He continued

James Forsyth

The EU’s latest effort won’t help May pass her Brexit deal

The letter from Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk ahead of tomorrow’s vote is not the cavalry arriving. It is more a restatement of what has gone before than anything else. If the EU is to make a big play to help Theresa May’s deal pass it will come before a second vote; as one Secretary of State lamented to me last week the EU has already written off this vote. But the letter is a reminder that May hasn’t sold this deal as well as she could. As the letter states, ‘the Withdrawal Agreement is also clear that any new act that the European Union proposes should be added to

The Spectator

Where every Tory MP stands on Brexit: the full list

As things stand, it looks inevitable that Theresa May’s Brexit deal will be defeated in the House of Commons on Tuesday, but what happens afterwards is the great unknown. While a number of MPs have voiced their opposition to May’s deal and no deal, the majority still have not made clear what they would support in its place. And unless there is a parliamentary majority for another option, Britain will leave the EU on 29 March without a deal by default. So what is there a majority for in the Commons? In an attempt to find out, Coffee House has compiled the public Brexit position of every single Tory MP.

Steerpike

Theresa May’s Welsh assembly memory loss

Theresa May is making a last ditch attempt this morning to convince MPs to back her Brexit deal when it’s finally put to a vote tomorrow evening. To do this, the Prime Minister will cite the 1997 referendum on creating the Welsh assembly. In that vote, Yes won by 0.3 percent, on a turnout of just over 50 percent – yet it was still enacted: ‘That result was accepted by both sides, and the popular legitimacy of that institution has never seriously been questioned.’ Alas, Mr S suspects it’s not the best example for May to go on. After that vote, the Tories argued against the creation of the assembly and

Sunday

Nikki Da Costa

The threat of a Brexit coup in Parliament is real – and terrifying

Today’s Sunday Times splash – about a ‘coup’ being plotted by Tory rebels to take over Brexit – looks and feels like it was dreamed up in No. 10. It wasn’t and the story shouldn’t be dismissed because of that. The Speaker’s actions last week have changed the calculations: something previously judged procedurally impossible (for rebels to call the shots in parliament) is now a genuine risk. In my view, it risks the very stability of the government. The story so far: that Dominic Grieve and Oliver Letwin are seeking a way to seize control of business in the Commons, so that backbench motions take precedence over government motions. This matters