Brexit

Monday

Theresa May

Theresa May’s reply to David Davis: 12 reasons why Brexit is safe.

Dear David, Thank you for your letter explaining your decision to resign as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. I am sorry that you have chosen to leave the Government when we have already made so much progress towards delivering a smooth and successful Brexit, and when we are only eight months from the date set in law when the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. At Chequers on Friday, we as the Cabinet agreed a comprehensive and detailed proposal which provides a precise, responsible, and credible basis for progressing our negotiations towards a new relationship between the UK and the EU after we leave in March.

David Davis-Mp

David Davis’ resignation letter

There have been a significant number of occasions in the last year or so on which I have disagreed with the Number 10 policy line – ranging from accepting the Commission’s sequencing of negotiations through to the language on Northern Ireland in the December Joint Report. At each stage, I have accepted collective responsibility because it is part of my task to find workable compromises, and because I considered it was still possible to deliver on the mandate of the referendum, and on our manifesto commitment to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market. I am afraid that I think the current trend of policy and tactics is making that look less

Sunday

Chris Key

Don’t blame Cameron for the government’s Brexit mess

I listened to the Coffee House podcast about Danny Dyer’s David Cameron rant. Fraser Nelson appears to live in a parallel universe. It is true that Cameron probably expected to be in a coalition with the Lib Dems again in 2015 and to never have to fulfil the promise of an EU referendum. However it is absurd to lay the blame for the government’s disastrous handling of Brexit negotiations at Cameron’s door. After all, was it David Cameron or Theresa May who triggered Article 50 with no clear negotiating plan? Was it David Cameron or Theresa May who called a snap election in a fit of hubris only to lose

James Forsyth

Why David Davis resigned

The Brexit Secretary David Davis has quit. Davis’s resignation is the biggest political crisis that Theresa May has faced since the loss of her majority in the general election and leaves her facing a battle to save her premiership. Davis has gone because he could not stomach the opening UK negotiating position agreed at Chequers. Davis has long been clear that he wanted a final deal that was, essentially, a souped-up version of the Canada free trade deal. But the position agreed at Chequers envisaged a relationship very different to that, one far more firmly in the EU’s regulatory orbit. As Brexit Secretary Davis was meant to promote the Chequers

Steerpike

Moggmentum reaches the Commons

Although Moggmentum has been building for some time among the Tory grassroots, conventional wisdom dictates that Jacob Rees-Mogg is still very unlikely to make it to No 10 – no matter how enthusiastic the members – thanks to the fact that he doesn’t have the support of enough Tory MPs to get onto the ballot paper in the first place. However, is a change a coming? Mr S only asks after Theresa May’s soft Brexit proposal appeared to get a number of Tory MPs wondering who would do a better job. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Andrew Bridgen – the outspoken Brexiteer and member of the European Research Group

James Forsyth

How much more unpalatable will the EU make this deal?

From the flurry of joint op-eds from Cabinet Ministers today, you might be forgiven for thinking that the Chequers deal is the deal. But, of course, it is not. Rather, it is the UK’s government opening position in the negotiation on the future relationship. So, logically, you would expect the government to have to make more concessions. The problem for the ministerial Brexiteers is that what the EU is likely to demand will make the deal much more difficult to defend. Take, for instance, parliament’s role in having to pass any changes to the so-called ‘common rulebook’ between the UK and the EU. Number 10 likes to talk about this

Saturday

Robert Peston

How Theresa May trounced the Brexiteers

Tory MPs and ministers have consistently under-estimated their leader. What Theresa May achieved at Chequers yesterday was extraordinary. She persuaded her cabinet to sign up for a Brexit plan that drives a coach and horses through what the Brexiters in her team – especially Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – said Brexit was all about, during that historic referendum campaign. What is more, at Chequers yesterday, Gove was a cheerleader for a plan that would enshrine in treaty what is supposedly anathema to his Brexit cause – that the UK now and forever would be subject to European Union rules and regulations governing the quality and safety of the goods

Charles Moore

Brexit isn’t the cause of High Street woes

As someone who follows the news on Radio 4 at 6, 7 and 8 each morning, I notice that the bulletins begin very leftish and become slightly less so later. I assume the unit responsible, ‘Newsgathering’, works through the night from its default political position. So it relies heavily on the ready supply of ‘news’ from pressure groups, NGOs and right-on charities: ‘A new report warns that millions will die unless the government immediately injects £400 billion into X’; ‘A survey by an independent, Brussels-based think tank reveals that independent, Brussels-based think tanks believe that Brexit will be a disaster for Britain’. As actual news gets going, this dreary propaganda

Friday

Katy Balls

Cabinet back Theresa May’s soft Brexit plan. How will Brussels respond?

Theresa May’s Cabinet away day is finally over and the Prime Minister can go to sleep safe in the knowledge that there have been no resignations… yet. In a No 10 statement this evening, May said the Cabinet had agreed its collective position for the Brexit negotiations – for a common rule book on industrial goods and agricultural products. This means the UK would have to in effect follow EU rules in these sectors: ‘Our proposal will create a U.K. – EU free trade area which establishes a common rule book for industrial goods and agricultural products. This maintains high standards in these areas, but we will also ensure that no

Ross Clark

The tragedy of the Brexit Chequers summit

Today has been so bigged-up as a day of destiny for Britain that it can only deliver disappointment. Even if we do have white smoke rising from the chimneys of Chequers by the end of the day, together with a photo full of strained smiles as the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary apparently agree on a blueprint for Brexit full of delicate compromises and trade-offs, why does anyone think that Michel Barnier and his team will give the nod to what is agreed? It is remarkable how little this matter has been raised over the last few days. We have had endless speculation on the internal politics of the cabinet. We

Brendan O’Neill

Theresa May’s Brexit plan is Remain by another name

Stop it. Stop saying we can’t be sure why people voted for Brexit. Stop saying it was just a screech of rage against politicians and so must now be tempered and made into sensible policy. Stop saying it’s fine for Theresa May in her Chequers showdown to ‘soften’ Brexit and keep us entangled in a customs union, and even in the European Court of Justice, because we don’t know if people really want to leave these institutions. This is all untrue. We know very well why people voted for Brexit, and we know that what May is offering is a betrayal of what they voted for. It is testament to

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 5 July 2018

Technical issues Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s supposition that car manufacturers are holding back investment due to Brexit seems to be wishful thinking (Any other business, 30 June). Having worked for years for one of the largest international vehicle manufacturers in both finance and export, I can assure him that the investment cycle is almost entirely to do with the product and almost not at all with political concerns. Car manufacturers, and particularly German ones, are faced with several serious issues which have nothing to do with Brexit. The diesel emissions manipulation issue and whether diesel engines are acceptable will impact on their decisions about petrol vs diesel engine lines, and the likely

James Forsyth

Number 10: We’ll do a free trade deal with the US

Earlier I wrote about how a paper circulated to ministers before Chequers makes clear that the UK’s plan to follow a ‘common rulebook for all goods including agri-food’ with the EU ‘would not allow the UK to accommodate a likely ask from the US in a future trade deal’ as the UK would be unable to recognise the US’s ‘array of standards’. But Number 10 are absolutely insistent that this doesn’t mean there won’t be a trade deal with the US; they also say that senior figures in government and trade experts are confident that a deal could still be done and that Theresa May wouldn’t be talking to Donald Trump

Steerpike

Naz Shah gets another NHS payday

‘Happy 70th Birthday to our wonderful NHS,’ the Labour MP Naz Shah tweeted earlier today. Shah isn’t the only one marking the anniversary, but it would seem that the Labour MP has more to celebrate about our health service than most. The latest register of MPs’ interests reveals that last month Shah received £1,800 for providing ‘leadership training’ for the NHS. The payment, for twelve hours’ work, means that Shah earned a healthy £150 an hour. This isn’t the first time that Shah has received a payday from the NHS. Last year, the Labour MP took home £1,200 from the NHS for delivering two leadership training sessions at the NHS Leadership

James Forsyth

Theresa May’s Brexit paper could mean no US trade deal

Earlier this afternoon, Cabinet Ministers received key papers ahead of the Chequers meeting tomorrow. The paper states that ‘The UK should maintain a common rulebook for all goods including agri-food’. It goes on that the UK will make ‘an upfront choice to commit by treaty to ongoing harmonisation with EU rules on goods’. As I say in the magazine this week, one of the key questions is how this will be done. If, as Downing Street currently wants, parliament is in charge of this process then the Brexiteers might be able to stomach it. But if the EU insist on this process being automatic then I expect that several Cabinet

Wednesday

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May’s Brexit gaffe

Theresa May has promised repeatedly that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ but it seems she is still confused about what exactly Britain’s departure from the EU involves. In PMQs today, May said: ‘As we leave the UK…as we leave the EU…’ This mixup is unlikely to inspire confidence ahead of this week’s crunch Chequer’s summit. Perhaps it’s time for the PM to brush up on some Brexit detail…

Ross Clark

The problem with Theresa May’s Brexit compromise

At Chequers over the next couple of days Theresa May, along with her chief Brexit-sceptic ministers Philip Hammond and Greg Clark, will attempt to convince others to agree to a soft Brexit. The latest thinking, according to reports today, is that the UK would more or less remain in the single market for goods but would face greater restrictions on trade in services. There would also be some degree of freedom of movement, though it would be more restricted than at present. A necessary compromise that will stave off the fear of ‘no deal’, or a cave-in which will hugely favour the EU? The problem is that the UK economy

Tuesday

Robert Peston

Revealed: Theresa May’s soft Brexit plan

This is one of the more important notes I’ve written recently, because it contains what well-placed sources tell me are the main elements of the Prime Minister’s Brexit plan – which will be put to her cabinet for approval on Friday. I would characterise the kernel of what she wants as the softest possible Brexit, subject to driving only the odd coach over her self-imposed red lines, as opposed to the full coach and horses. And I will start with my habitual apology: some of what follows is arcane, technical and – yes – a bit boring. But it matters. Let’s start with the PM’s putative third way on a

Steerpike

Brexit football chant competition: the winners

Tonight England faces Colombia in a crunch World Cup match that could see Harry Kane’s team put on the path to success – or cruelly eliminated from the tournament. So, to get viewers in the mood, Mr S thought it was time to announce the winners of Steerpike’s Brexit football chant competition. After sifting through the entries, here are the three top entries – from across the spectrum of Brexit sentiments. Don’t forget to chant them tonight: Mine eyes have seen the glory of a life that’s Euro-free, No more rules and regulations, no more siege mentality. We’ve finally blown the whistle on the Brussells referee And this is why we

Steerpike

The Guardian fails to get into the World Cup spirit

England’s crunch World Cup game against Colombia is only a few hours away now and the whole country is getting excited. Over at the Guardian, however, the big game is a perfect opportunity to take a pop at Brexit voters. According to a piece on the paper’s website, ‘If this England team represents anyone, it’s the 48%: the remainers’. It goes on to say: Of course, what the article doesn’t make clear is what stop and search actually has to do with Brexit. And nor does it have much time apparently for the third of Asian voters, or the 27 per cent of black voters, who voted in favour of