Brexit

Tuesday

Matthew Lynn

Why King trumps Carney in the battle of the governors

If they were former Manchester United players, Booker prize nominees, or members of Oasis, the acrimony and arguments might be fairly run of the mill. Among current and former Governors of the Bank of England it is, to put it mildly, a little unusual. And yet Mark Carney now finds himself under sustained attack from his immediate predecessor Mervyn King over how it should handle our departure from the European Union. And in that battle of governors there can surely only be one winner – and it isn’t the incumbent. In a piece for Bloomberg, King, who served with distinction at the Bank from 2003 to 2013, takes apart Theresa’s May’s exit deal in ferocious detail.

Steerpike

Mervyn King: May’s deal is a shameful betrayal of Brexit

It's safe to say that Mervyn King,  former Bank of England governor, does not quite agree with Mark Carney on Brexit. In an incendiary article for Bloomberg, he says that the sight of Boris and Blair uniting against the deal shows  that "something has gone badly wrong". How wrong? Here's his argument. "The withdrawal agreement is less a carefully crafted diplomatic compromise and more the result of incompetence of a high order. I have friends who are passionate Remainers and others who are passionate Leavers. None of them believe this deal makes any sense. It is time to think again, and the first step is to reject a deal that is the worst of all worlds.

Ross Clark

The Article 50 ruling is good news for Remainers – and hard Brexiteers

How Remainers are feasting on the ruling (although not final judgement) from the European Court of Justice suggesting that Britain could unilaterally revoke Article 50 at any point up until 29 March next year and remain in the EU under existing terms. If the final judgement confirms the ruling it will destroy the argument that Michael Gove made at the weekend – that reversing our decision to stay in the EU would lead to vastly inferior terms, the loss of Britain’s rebate and so on. It will also heap huge pressure on Theresa May if she loses next week’s seemingly doomed vote on her withdrawal bill. While Downing Street has described the ECJ ruling as hypothetical, she will have to fend off a reinvigorated campaign for a second referendum.

The Spectator

Why I quit Ukip

There has never been a more pressing need for a home for Brexit voters disillusioned by the spectacle of recent events. Yet Ukip, under a leader fixated by EDL founder Tommy Robinson, has marched to a place where very few Leave voters wish to go. When I left Ukip last week, what caused the biggest stir was the fact that it was not to sit as an independent but to join the SDP. Many political journalists did not know that the party still existed, let alone that it has been Eurosceptic for many years. But the party has been growing fast over the past few months as the more moderate elements of Ukip – along with some determined Labour and Tory leavers – have sought a centre-ground party that will campaign to honour the referendum verdict.

Monday

Steerpike

Watch: Geoffrey Cox heckled over Brexit backstop

Theresa May is taking a break from defending her Brexit deal in Parliament – giving the chance to her Attorney General to have a go instead. But Geoffrey Cox's sales pitch to MPs on the Brexit backstop isn't going entirely to plan. Cox confirmed to Parliament that there is 'no unilateral right' for Britain – or the EU – to 'terminate' the arrangement. In response, a Tory MP yelled out: 'So it's a trap!'   Mr S thinks it is fair to say that, with only eight days until the big Parliamentary vote, MPs could do with a bit more persuading...

Tony Lodge

If Britain can’t keep the lights on this winter, will the EU be to blame?

Britain’s ability to keep the lights on has just been thrown into doubt by the European Court of Justice. It has ruled that the backbone of the UK’s capacity market energy scheme, which pays power stations to generate electricity, is illegal state aid and must be suspended. To call this a body blow for energy security is a gross understatement; as you read these words Whitehall is desperately trying to reassure generators and very nervous investors. Payments to power stations through the capacity market have now been stopped until the Government can get permission from the European Commission to restart them, but this could take years.

James Kirkup

The question May’s Brexit deal critics must ask themselves | 3 December 2018

Brexit is an accident born of misunderstanding. One of the biggest miscalculations is about the EU and how it works. Troublingly, that misjudgement, embraced by both unwise Leavers and imprudent Remainers, could just lead Britain off a cliff, for the second time in three years. I attended my first EU summit in 2001 and stopped counting the number of Council meetings, ECOFINs and other EU gatherings when the figure passed 50 some time early in the financial crisis. I’ve seen a lot of British politicians go to Brussels (and elsewhere, in those innocent days before the Belgians captured all council meetings for their capital) and pursue the British national interest, with varying degrees of success.

Steerpike

Watch: Maybot’s awkward This Morning interview

Theresa May has just over a week to go until her Brexit deal is voted on in the Commons, and while all the signs suggest she is facing a thumping defeat, the Maybot is still sticking to the script. In an interview with Phillip Schofield on This Morning, May was asked what will happen if she loses the vote. May did her best to dodge the question: PS: What happens to you if they vote you down? The next day, what will you be saying? TM: I'm, I'm, I'm very clear. I have got a duty as PM to deliver PS: But if you don't? TM: I've got a duty.. PS: But if you don't? ... My question was: what happens if you don't (get it through)? Will you resign? TM: I am focusing on getting that vote through....There is going to be a lot of debate.

Sunday

Rod Liddle

What’s the point of having a Brexit debate between May and Corbyn?

I can see that there is a moral case for a General Election, as demanded by Jeremy Corbyn. An election which Corbyn would win, by some margin, I suspect. The government is inept, hopelessly divided, derided and May will not get the majority she needs to push her Brexit deal through the Commons. There is a strong practical as well as moral case for an election then. I get all that. What I do not get is why this TV debate should be between May and Corbyn. If Corbyn had a clear line on Brexit then maybe. But he does not, he has been, on the issue, evasive to the point of obscurantism and even now I do not know what he wants to happen. In the Brexit debate he is a total irrelevancy.

Robert Peston

Theresa May’s nine days to save her world

Theresa May (and I) are just back from Argentina. And she is about to enter the most important week of her political life and the most important week in this country’s political and constitutional history for decades. It starts tomorrow with the publication of a summary of the legal advice on the PM’s Brexit plan - which will expose an irreconcilable contradiction at the heart of the so-called backstop to keep open the border on the island of Ireland. On the one hand, if the UK were to trigger the backstop at the end of 2020, which would effectively take us into the EU’s customs union, the UK would never have the unilateral right to leave it.

Saturday

James Forsyth

Why no deal planning should be stepped up

No-go-day was meant to be yesterday, I say in The Sun. This was the moment when the Department for Exiting the EU wanted the principal purpose of government to become getting the country ready for leaving the EU regardless of whether there was a deal or not. Number 10 argued that a vaguer deadline of late November / early December was better. They thought that this would give more time to tell whether full on ‘no deal’ prep was necessary or not. But now, Number 10 is indicating that it wants to hold off until after the meaningful vote on the 11th of December. This is not a good idea, though. Those inside the machine estimate that it would take four months of intense preparations to get this country into a place where it could make no deal manageable.

Friday

Robert Peston

Could Theresa May’s latest attack on Corbyn backfire?

The Prime Minister might have been a bit too clever when attacking Corbyn’s and Labour’s opposition to her Brexit deal. Some four hours in to her 14 hour flight to the G20 leading nations’ summit in Argentina, she told journalists: “What they are doing is advocating rejecting the deal we negotiated with the European Union without having any proper alternative to it. “They say they don’t want ‘no-deal’ but by appearing to reject a temporary backstop they are effectively advocating no-deal, because without a backstop there is no deal”. So she is accusing Labour of ushering in the kind of economic no-deal calamity – a devastating recession that would see the income of the U.K.

Thursday

The Spectator

Theresa May’s deal is not Canada Plus – it’s Remain Minus. Why pretend otherwise?

While some may doubt Donald Trump’s claim to be a friend of Britain’s, his intervention in the Brexit debate this week has been timely and depressingly accurate. The deal that Theresa May has brought back from Brussels, and which she will put before the Commons on 11 December, is indeed a good deal for the European Union. Brussels retains control over the British economy but no longer has to deal with the British in its various voting procedures. Britain agrees not to become more competitive through regulatory reform, and its chances of striking trade deals are slim. So Trump was merely saying, in his usual offhand manner, what other world leaders have been thinking. His thoughts are echo-ed in Australia, which had been looking forward to doing a trade deal with the UK.

Steerpike

Watch: Geoffrey Cox’s minister of the year acceptance speech

Geoffrey Cox's rousing warm-up act for Theresa May at Tory party conference elevated the Attorney General's public profile. In the weeks since, Cox's importance has continued to grow, as cabinet ministers – both remainers and leavers – have come to depend on his legal know-how to interpret the Brexit deal. And now, Cox has been named minister of the year at The Spectator's Parliamentarian of the year awards last night. Here's what he had to say: 'Well, I'm incredibly grateful, privileged and honoured to have been awarded this tremendous and distinguished award. I have to say that, after just four months in the cabinet, it comes as both a surprise and a pleasant shock....

James Forsyth

Why Theresa May might end up embracing a second referendum

There are few things in the Brexit debate that are not disputed. But there is one thing that pretty much everyone accepts: that Theresa May believes in her deal. She really does think it is the right answer to the referendum result. However, as I say in the magazine this week, her deal is unlikely to get through the Commons. But what can May do given that she wants her deal to pass? Well, there is one route that might work for her: a second referendum. If the Commons won’t back her deal, then maybe the country will. This would require a massive volte-face from May, and her exasperated reaction when asked about a so-called ‘People’s Vote’ shows she isn’t currently entertaining the idea.

Matthew Lynn

The problem with a ‘no deal’ Brexit

There have probably been worse branding campaigns in history. Cadbury’s apparent attempt to drop the word ‘Easter’ from its egg hunts was a clunker of cosmic proportions. The launch of New Coke has found its way into the textbooks as a masterclass in how to trash one of the greatest brands in the world, and Nivea's 'White Is Purity’ campaign for its skin creams last year had to be dropped very quickly after the inevitable backlash. The attempt to sell a ‘No Deal’ Brexit is not quite up there with those disasters. But it is getting close. In truth, there is nothing terribly wrong with leaving the European Union without an agreement, and it might well be better than the alternative we are being bullied into.

Alex Massie

The moment Theresa May sealed our Brexit fate

Theresa May is in Scotland today which is one way of ascertaining the depth of the hole in which she finds herself. One day, prime ministerial visits to Scotland – or, indeed, to Northern Ireland or Wales – will cease to be considered newsworthy events in their own right. Until such time as they are not rarities, however, they are doomed to be seen as gestures. A whistle-stop tour of the United Kingdom’s northern and western extremities is not enough, no matter how much the Prime Minister might enjoy a day or two away from the Westminster snake-pit. This visit, like so many others, will be an occasion for saying at least some of the right things but it will not make any meaningful difference to anything that is actually meaningful.

Matt Kilcoyne

Remaining in the EU would come at a big price for Britain

We're familiar with the warnings about the cost of Brexit. The 'People's Vote' campaign released an estimate yesterday suggesting that Theresa May's deal will leave the UK £100bn worse off a year. Tomorrow, the Treasury will unveil its forecasts of the economic impact of Brexit. But what about the price of staying put in the EU? Whatever those clamouring for a 'People's Vote' might claim, no Brexit does have a cost. Firstly, the price in terms of political capital will be significant. What does going back on the referendum result say to the 17.4million voters who voted Leave? What about the damage done to trust in our institutions and our politicians? Or to the idea that voters can change our country’s destiny by the power of their choices at the ballot box?

Nicholas Farrell

The next Italian crisis

For those who believe in the European project, Brexit is a headache. Italy, on the other hand, is a bloody nightmare. Its new anti-elite populist coalition government of the alt-left Five Star Movement and the radical-right League is currently set on a collision course with the EU. This could easily start a chain reaction that destroys the single currency. The British media hardly mentioned it but on Saturday, once Jean-Claude Juncker, EU Commission president, had sent Theresa May on her way with a pat on the back, he sat down to ‘a working dinner’ with Giuseppe Conte, the Italian Prime Minister, to discuss Italy’s ‘unprecedented’ breach of EU rules on its budget.

Ross Clark

The Corbyn effect

What’s wrong with UK financial markets? The global economy is recovering, but British stocks and shares are not keeping pace. The pound has failed to recover from the slide it experienced in the wake of the EU referendum. This is frequently blamed on investors being spooked by Brexit, even more so by the possibility of a no deal. But has anyone actually asked the markets what is spooking them? Look closer and it becomes clear that while Brexit is a problem for some investors, most are much more worried about a far bigger risk, even if they rarely speak about it in public. It is the possibility of a Corbyn government. Since last year’s election, when the Labour leader came within a stone’s throw of No. 10, it has been impossible to write off the idea of a Corbyn victory.