Uk politics

The EU withdrawal bill survived its first Parliamentary test last night. But it still has a long way to go, and a group of Tory MPs are likely to ensure that it is far from plain sailing for the government. For those on the Conservative back benches plotting to defy the Prime Minister on this Brexit bill, the Daily Telegraph has a message: why? The paper says that Labour MPs hoping to ‘put every obstacle in the path of Brexit’ can at least make the point they are in opposition. Rebel Tory MPs have no such excuse, according to the Telegraph, pointing out that many of this group backed the triggering of Article 50 and yet now appear to have changed their minds.

This week a Conservative politician managed to get both the SNP and Labour to applaud them in the Chamber. Unfortunately for Theresa May, it wasn't in response to government policy. Instead it was Europhile – and Tory grandee – Ken Clarke, who took the opportunity to explain why he thinks Nigel Farage is the 'most successful politician' of his generation, why bent bananas won't be making a comeback and, most importantly, why MPs ought to oppose Theresa May's Brexit date amendment (also known as amendment 381) to the EU Withdrawal Bill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Among the many things that have been puzzling me since Priti Patel’s resignation last week, one stands out. So far as I can see there doesn’t seem to be a single person on the Conservative – or conservative – side who has claimed that the campaign against Ms Patel (for campaign it most certainly was, within and without) was motivated by racism. This is curious. In recent years we have become used to men and women on the political left making errors both big and small. And whenever that person happens to be of a minority ethnic background a chorus of defenders in the Labour party and on the broader left always cry ‘racist’ against any and all critics of that person. Diane Abbott’s defenders are one example.

'Take up our quarrel with the foe', intones John McCrae’s famous In Flanders Fields. 'To you from failing hands we throw, the torch'. For the millions of us marking Remembrance Sunday today, that quarrel is a solemn reminder of past sacrifice. It refers, somewhat euphemistically, to one of the bloodiest, most tragic conflicts in history. For some activists in and around the European Union, however, a more contemporary quarrel comes to mind. Obsessed with what they perceive as the dark foreboding forces of Brexit, they can’t help raising aloft the torch of EU supranationalism. The most egregious example being a piece in The Independent with the outrageous clickbait headline 'If you voted Leave don't bother wearing a poppy'. https://twitter.

Another week, another Cabinet resignation. Now, as I say in The Sun this morning, there are those saying that Theresa May is just being unlucky right now. As Downing Street aides point out, few would have predicted a few weeks ago that Westminster was going to be engulfed in a sex scandal or that Priti Patel was going to have to resign for running her own, independent foreign policy. Theresa May’s problem, though, isn’t that a black cat walked in front of her. Rather, it is that her government is becalmed. It doesn’t have enough momentum to get through crises, so it gets stuck in them. As a result, the calculation about whether May can stay as Prime Minister is staring to shift.