Uk politics

Tim Shipman’s book about the EU referendum campaign, All Out War, is serialised today in the Sunday Times. The newspaper today leads on the remarkable disclosure that David Cameron blames Theresa May for the paucity of the deal he negotiated in those 30 sleepless hours with Brussels. Here’s the extract:- Before the speech, conscious that immigration was likely to be an explosive issue in the referendum campaign, Cameron had floated with Merkel the idea of an annual cap on the number of national insurance numbers handed to EU migrants or an emergency brake on numbers. But the German leader said she would not agree to changes to free movement for EU citizens.

The Labour Party is in a sour mood at present, that much we already know. Usually, most of the sourness expressed by MPs is directed at their own party comrades. But this afternoon, at the Labour Women’s Conference, speaker after speaker decided to turn fire on Theresa May. Angela Rayner congratulated her on being the second female Prime Minister of this country, but said ‘I cannot celebrate her arrival’. Kezia Dugdale attacked both May and Nicola Sturgeon for not being real feminists, saying: ‘Look at Theresa May - she has the audacity to wear a ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ T-shirt.

By the time Labour party conference begins on Sunday in Liverpool, the party will have announced its new leader. And it is likely to be its old leader, Jeremy Corbyn. For those who have nailed their colours to Owen Smith’s mast, it is quickly becoming clear that Corbyn is about to consolidate power. As a result, there will need to be a mass rethinking of the anti-Corbyn strategy. Most analysis of Theresa May’s decision to fight for grammar schools has focused on the internal politics of the Conservative party, but the debate has also inadvertently played into Jeremy Corbyn’s hands. Finally, after more than a year in the job, Corbyn has a domestic policy that he actually cares about.

Sunday is the second anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum, the second 'Here's what you could have won' day of thanksgiving. Or, if you prefer, atonement. The referendum is only over in the purest, most technical, sense. The campaign continues and it is clear to everyone that, at some point, on some day, Scotland will have to be tested again. The SNP demand a mulligan and will not cease until such time as they're given a second chance. They haven't gone away, you know. And, in one sense, that is reasonable. The SNP didn't spend eighty years losing elections to give up now they're can see the winning post at last. One more defeat, even a large and significant one, doesn't sting so much when placed in that historical context. There is always next season.

Nigel Farage has just delivered his speech at Ukip conference, in which he declared that he had put 'absolutely all of me' into Britain leaving the EU. 'I literally couldn't have worked any harder, or couldn't have been more determined - it's been my life's work to get to this point. I want my country back, but now folks I want my life back,' he said. He went onto claim that Ukip had 'changed the course of British history' and suggested that the party had 'brought down a prime minister' and had 'got rid of a chancellor'. On Theresa May's premiership, he suggested there was a 'great political battle ahead', before raising concerns that she might go for a 'soft Brexit'. Farage then couldn't resist taking a swipe at Douglas Carswell, his party's only MP.

The leaking - accidental or otherwise - of a list of Labour MPs allegedly guilty of abusive behaviour towards Jeremy Corbyn is yet another illustration of quite how divided the party is, and quite how messy things are going to be when Corbyn tries to reassert his authority following what looks certain to be his re-election to the top job. We now have MPs such as Neil Coyle consulting legal opinion on whether to sue their party leader. If you wanted the antonym of ‘happy ship’, the Labour Party is a pretty good option. The Labour leader and John McDonnell today took questions on the matter after a speech on the economy and public services (awkwardly trailed as ‘pubic services’ in a press release), and both insisted they were trying to heal the party.

‘I don’t think we are a charity.  We are a successful, multi-national educational institution,’ explained the public school head to me. And he was right. As it happens, he was a highly progressive head committed to using the wealth and resource he enjoyed to collaborate with an under-performing local academy.  For the first time, their partner school now had maths graduates teaching physics and a new range of language options.  But he had no doubt that he should not be in receipt of charitable status and tax relief.  Which is why one of the few components of Theresa May’s school reforms I can support is the Prime Minister’s determination to introduce ‘stronger, more demanding public benefit tests for independent schools.

Unlike the boss, I thought Liam Fox's comments on fat and lazy British businesses that could be exporting more but aren't because, well, an afternoon on the golf course is more comfortable than striving for Britain were deplorable. But they were also telling. Because they were a further confirmation that the United Kingdom now has a nationalist government. The liberal Toryism of the Cameron era is gone, sunk with a whimper in record time. In its place is a Conservative nationalism that envisages SS Britannia buccaneering its way across the world's oceans. This, after all, was the animating spirit of what we might call the Brexit campaign's more cheerful wing.

When Theresa May appointed three of the most outspoken and free-minded Brexiteers to her Cabinet, her fellow Remainers were delighted. Surely the only question is what they’d do first: implode or disembowel each other? Ever since, the speeches they’ve made have been seen through this narrative. First, David Davis was seen to have gaffed for pointing out that it's "improbable" that the UK stays in the European single market. And today, we have Liam Fox’s remarks to Conservative Way Forward about Britain's trade problem. A friend of mine was at the event, and took a video. Here's the transcript: CoffeeHousers can judge for themselves if his remarks are really so outrageous. "This country is not the free trading nation that it once was.