Brexit

Few people would choose to celebrate their birthday by listening to Philip Hammond speak, but that is the pleasure that awaits Theresa May on Monday. On Tuesday she must suffer in silence as Boris Johnson derails Tory party conference with an appeal to ‘chuck Chequers’. It’s hard not to pity the Prime Minister. She is now horribly isolated. Both in her own cabinet and in Europe, she has few allies. As she tries to sell her Chequers plan, almost nobody is backing it or her. Other prime ministers have endured difficult periods. Few have faced them with as little support. It is no coincidence that Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Tories, now says she doesn’t want to be PM. She has seen inside No.

David Lidington is the most powerful minister you’ve never heard of. He is Theresa May’s de facto deputy, tasked with both supervising the domestic agenda and solving the trickiest Brexit conundrums. Much of government business is, nowadays, done through committees of cabinet members: he chairs seven such committees and sits on another 20. ‘I am the man who stands on the stage spinning plates on the top of poles,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Every now and then the PM gives me another plate and I have to keep that going as well.’ That’s hardly a metaphor that inspires much confidence in the running of the government, but everybody will know what he means. Lidington was Europe minister under David Cameron and a committed Remainer in the referendum.

Supermarkets have always moved with the times. After the recession we wanted affordable luxury, so we got M&S’s ‘Dine in for two’ and its various imitators. These promised us a restaurant-quality meal and a nice bottle of sauvignon blanc for a tenner. Well, now the times they are a-Brexit, and retail giants are adapting accordingly. Last week Tesco opened Jack’s. Partly it’s a response to the explosive growth of German rivals Aldi and Lidl. Partly it’s an attempt to create a new, patriotic shopping experience for a nation trying to go its own way. Tesco bosses swear Jack’s is ‘nothing to do with Brexit’. But the clue’s in the name.

Conference, the last two years have not been easy. Like many of you, I was devastated by the referendum result. Like many of you, I’d campaigned passionately to stay in the EU. Not for the technical benefits – important though they are. But because I’m an internationalist. Because I believe that nations achieve more together than they do alone. I believe that the greatest challenges facing our nation –  armed conflict, terrorism, climate change or  unchecked globalisation – can best be met together with our EU partners. And the greatest opportunities –  medical research, scientific advancement, art and culture – can only be realised together with our EU partners.

The Corbynistas don't have much time for Kate Hoey, the Labour MP and ardent Brexiteer. Owen Jones accused Hoey of propping up a government that is leading Britain 'into calamity' by refusing to vote down the Tories over Brexit. But the MP for Vauxhall has a message for her critics: it isn't me you should worry about. Instead, Hoey said, Corbyn's supporters should keep an eye on the likes of Chuka Umunna and other Labour MPs calling for a second referendum. Their support for a 'people's vote' has little to do with Brexit, she said, and more to do with trying to make life difficult for Jeremy Corbyn.

Kate Hoey has paid a heavy price for being a supporter of Brexit. The Labour MP has been hounded online and faced a vicious deselection battle in her Vauxhall constituency from activists who say that she has no place representing an area in which nearly eight in ten voters backed ‘Remain’. But rather than change her mind, Hoey has stuck to her guns. At a Labour Leave event on the fringes of the party’s conference in Liverpool, Hoey had a message for her critics: there’s no contradiction in backing Brexit and being a leftie. Hoey wasn’t the only Labour MP making that point at last night’s event.