Brexit

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 20 September 2018

Stand by your plan Sir: Matthew Parris (‘Must the will of the people always be respected?’, 15 September) asks when it is permissible to seek to overturn a referendum result. He missed a crucial point, which is that the answer depends on the locus of the individual considering the question. To my mind an ordinary citizen is always free to campaign to overturn the result. An MP, possibly, but not when elected on a manifesto to implement said result or who when campaigning in the referendum said they would abide by the result. Any member of a government who has promised to implement the result must clearly do just that.

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 20 September 2018

Moving day. The contents of a hillside shack to be moved four miles to a cave house perched high on a cliff above the village. The cave house’s only access from the road below is a steep, narrow and stony footpath. Three removal men for the job: me plus two French day-labourers. The elder of the Frenchmen, Philippe, was 67. I called him Philippe Phillop because that’s what he wore. He is a patriotic Parisian and his character, I would say, is the Parisian equivalent of a chirpy cockney. The same ready wit, the same cynicism born of urban poverty. He did not, however, find my nickname for him as

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 20 September 2018

Home Britain was overwhelmed by Brexitry. Before flying off to an EU summit in Salzburg, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, interviewed on Panorama, said that if Parliament did not ratify the Chequers plan, ‘I think that the alternative to that will be having no deal.’ The International Monetary Fund warned against ‘a no-deal Brexit on WTO terms that would entail substantial costs for the UK economy’. Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ‘We must heed the clear warnings of the IMF.’ Mr Hammond was said to have suggested in cabinet that Britain might have to remain a member of the EU beyond 29 March next year, but he

Robert Peston

Chequers goes pop: Theresa May’s Salzburg catastrophe

Chequers, as the journalist Chris Deerin has pointed out, goes pop. Which wry and funny as it is for those of us of a certain age will not be cheering up Theresa May. Because the EU summit in Salzburg has been a personal catastrophe for her. And worse than that, it was an avoidable catastrophe. Because every EU expert bar those she employs in Whitehall has been saying very loudly for weeks that the trade and commercial proposal in her Chequers Brexit plan would never win favour among the EU 27. So the question is why she waited to have that so publicly and humiliatingly stated by the EU’s president

James Forsyth

Donald Tusk tells Theresa May to chuck Chequers

The government weren’t expecting a dramatic breakthrough in the Brexit talks at Salzburg. But they were hoping for some more positive mood music, for some language that would help Theresa May get through party conference. But Donald Tusk has just issued a broadside against Chequers: ‘The suggested framework for economic co-operation will not work, not least because it is undermining the single market.’ Tusk’s brutal language makes it that much harder for Theresa May to maintain that the EU is engaging with Chequers and her plans for a European Traded Goods Area and a Facilitated Customs Arrangement. There’ll now be huge pressure on her – including from within her own

James Forsyth

The benefits of a blind Brexit

Brexit won’t be over by 29 March 2019. Britain will legally leave the European Union on that date. But that won’t tell us what Britain’s future relationship with the bloc will be, or how closely aligned the UK will be to the EU. Those are questions for which we will have to wait for the answers. What MPs will vote on before next March is not a ‘Brexit deal’ but a withdrawal agreement. Theresa May won’t come to the Commons and table her Chequers plan for approval, which is just as well given that she doesn’t currently have the votes to pass it. Rather, she will put forward an agreement

Martin Vander Weyer

Jaguar’s boss isn’t scaremongering: the UK car industry is in big trouble

‘I’m afraid I think he’s making it up,’ was the retort of Tory MP Sir Bernard Jenkin on Monday’s Today programme to the claim by Ralf Speth, boss of Jaguar Land Rover, that a bad Brexit deal could put tens of thousands of jobs at risk in JLR and its suppliers, and cost his company £1.2 billion a year. In the same speech last week, Speth pointed out that the lack of any sort of Brexit clarity means he has no idea whether his UK factories will be able to operate on 30 March next year — or whether even the ‘tiny’ border delays Jenkin concedes are likely will cripple

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Donald Tusk’s Brexit warning spells trouble for Theresa May

What to make of Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council’s latest tweet? Ahead of tonight’s dinner in Salzburg, he says: ‘Today there is perhaps more hope but there is surely less and less time. On the Irish question and the framework for economic cooperation the UK’s proposal needs to be reworked’ The first sentence is classic Tusk; he has a fondness for statements that are meant to sound profound. His comments on the Irish border are also to be expected. The UK and the EU are still 48 kilometres apart on this question and playing a dangerous game of chicken. Theresa May will use tonight’s dinner to try

Robert Peston

Will EU leaders chuck Chequers in Salzburg?

This week’s EU summit in Salzburg should settle three important Brexit questions of profound important to this country’s future and that of the PM too. Most importantly, the leaders of the EU 27 are being asked by their Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and the EU president Donald Tusk how specific and prescriptive they want the Political Declaration on Britain’s prospective relationship with the EU to be. In a way it is astonishing, with just six months to go before we’re out, that Barnier and Tusk do not know something so fundamental about their wishes. And truthfully it is mostly about finding out from the German chancellor Angela Merkel whether she

Tuesday

James Forsyth

The unwelcome distraction waiting for the PM in Salzburg

Theresa May heads to Salzburg tomorrow to try and persuade the leaders of the EU27 of the merits of her Brexit plan. But there’ll be an unwelcome distraction for her in the morning. I understand that the European Commission will issue a reasoned opinion in the Olaf case, where the Commission accuses the UK of failing to prevent customs fraud on shoes and textiles imported from China and is demanding over two billion euros in lost revenue. The UK continues to contest this case, and I understand it has asked the Commission for more information on various points. But the timing of this reasoned opinion has raised eyebrows in government

Ross Clark

The problem with the Brexit migration report

Farming out the development of post-Brexit UK migration policy to a professor from the LSE was a political masterstroke by the former Home Secretary Amber Rudd. How much harder it will be for Remainers to condemn the government’s position on migration as some kind of racist, xenophobic exercise knowing that it has been formed in one of the liberal establishment’s favourite seats of learning. Yet there is nothing in Sir Alan Manning’s report which could not have come from the pen of a ‘populist’ politician trying to satisfy public grievance on migration. While it is no doubt true that some people voted Brexit in the hope of stopping all migration,

Monday

Ross Clark

Why should we listen to the IMF’s Brexit warning?

Why are we so addicted to economic forecasts? We’ll know they are going to turn out to be wrong because they always do. And yet still we can’t seem to stop ourselves hanging on their every word. This morning it is the IMF’s turn, once more, to have its forecasts for the UK economy treated with undue seriousness. The Guardian reports that the IMF ‘backs Theresa May’s warnings over no-deal Brexit’ – by saying a ‘no deal’ scenario would lead to ‘substantial costs’ for the UK. But even May’s Chequers deal will condemn Britain to economic mediocrity, according to the IMF. The FT reports that, in the case of a

Saturday

James Forsyth

Philip Hammond raises the prospect of delaying Brexit day

Philip Hammond’s political tin ear has struck again. As I write in The Sun this morning, he has twice been slapped down in Cabinet this week. On Tuesday, he talked about ‘squealing’ about universal credit and was chastised by the Chief Whip for his language. Those sympathetic to Hammond point out that he was referring to Labour when talking about ‘squealing’. But it was still a poor choice of words when discussing changes to the benefits system. Then at the ‘no deal’ Cabinet on Thursday, Hammond raised the prospect of delaying Brexit day. After the legislative timetable for getting ready for ‘no deal’—which is tight—had been outlined, Hammond pointed out

Friday

Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: plots, politics, and the pains of leadership

This week, Tory in-fighting comes to the fore, but could the party be even more divided than we thought? Meanwhile, across the Pond, Donald Trump continues to cause backlash. Is he to blame for an ideological shift to the left in the country? Thankfully, our own Head of State isn’t on Twitter, though that doesn’t stop people speculating about her Majesty’s personal opinions. Is the Queen a Eurosceptic? First, the Conservative Party is taking up arms against each other. This week, back room plotting came to the fore with the Brexiteer group the ERG openly discussing Mrs May’s demise and Boris Johnson dominating headlines. But James Forsyth reveals in this

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 13 September 2018

Home Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, was said to want to throw a lifeline to Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, but he insisted: ‘It is not possible to get freedom for goods without freedom for services, in particular for the movement of people.’ Up to 80 Tory MPs would vote against the government’s plan hatched at Chequers in July, Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, said. A few dozen members of the European Research Group met to see how they might make best use of rules on Conservative leadership election. The Trades Union Congress said it could throw its ‘full weight’ behind a referendum on the final

The Spectator

Why can’t the Tories see that a Canada-style Brexit deal is the answer?

Loyalty, it used to be said, was the Tories’ secret weapon. No longer. Self-discipline has been discarded — along with commitments to lowering taxes, being strong on defence and keeping the streets safe. The Conservatives appear to have abandoned all of their beliefs and transformed into the party of Brexit. But, it seems, they can’t even get that right. Brexit is one of the most important projects any government has undertaken in our postwar history — a task that has been entrusted to Conservative MPs, most of whom voted against Brexit. The Prime Minister and her Chancellor, her Foreign Secretary and her Home Secretary all argued during the referendum campaign

Matthew Parris

Must ‘the will of the people’ always be respected?

I’ve always respected Alistair Darling and cannot imagine him saying anything ill-considered. But listening to him interviewed last Monday on the Today programme I heard him offer, as though it were obvious, an assumption so much less obvious than he appeared to recognise, that it set me thinking: not about the admirable former chancellor but about a real divide among civilised people that our age is perhaps insufficiently aware of. The presenter, Nick Robinson, had asked Mr Darling if he supported a second (or ‘people’s’) referendum on Brexit. No, said Darling: ‘You ask people what they think and clearly you’ve got to live with it.’ Seconds later, still speaking about

Tuesday

Robert Peston

The Brexiteer mutiny against Theresa May has begun

I am just going to let this speak for itself. It’s a slightly edited but verbatim account of tonight’s weekly meeting of the Brexiter European Research Group faction of the Conservative Party. It requires no additional comment from me – other than that I have multiple sources vouching for its veracity. “We’ve just had an ERG mass meeting, 50 odd MPs present, where virtually the only topic of conversation for 40/50 mins was: how best do we get rid of her? What’s the best way to use our letters? Comments included: ‘Everyone I know says she has to go’, ‘she’s a disaster’, ‘this can’t go on’. You might think that

Steerpike

The banks abandon Project Fear

Three senior bankers from Barclays, J.P. Morgan and Citi descended on the House of Commons today to give evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on the impact of a No Deal Brexit. Their interview must have seemed like perfect timing for Chancellor Philip Hammond, who is currently doing his own tour of the Commons and is expected to drum up support for Chequers by stoking fears of the calamitous impact of No Deal Unfortunately for Hammond, the three bankers were not nearly as morose as the Treasury could have hoped for. Instead they said the risks of No Deal were comparable to the instability they regularly faced across the world.

Nick Cohen

Why an insurgent Remain could win a second vote | 11 September 2018

Cold calculation suggests there won’t be a second referendum. It could destroy both the Tory and Labour parties, and in any case, we appear to be heading for a classic EU fudge that will postpone hard choices. But as all predictions in 2018 are likely to be false, and the Tory right appears determined to provoke a crisis, it’s worth understanding why the People’s Vote campaign thinks that next time it will be different. They will be the insurgents and the Brexiters will be defending the status quo. Running against a failed establishment has always been a good tactic, but never more so than in the 2010s. Remain campaigners find