Uk politics

Monday

Fraser Nelson

What George Osborne should have written in the Wall Street Journal

From our UK edition

We have three months until we get a new Prime Minister but I’m not sure we can wait so long for a new Chancellor. George Osborne’s silence was bad, but his re-emergence is even worse – as his pitiful article in today’s Wall Street Journal shows. It is written as if some awful tragedy had befallen Britain, and that this visibly battered country is appealing for American support. His job is to sell Britain, its people and the historic decision they have just made, rather than disparage it. Osborne’s article is here. Below is what he should have written. On 23 July, the people of Britain voted to leave the European Union – perhaps the single most momentous decision of my political lifetime.

Isabel Hardman

And then there was one… Theresa May’s team prepare for government

From our UK edition

Chris Grayling has given this very brief statement on behalf of Theresa May in the past few minutes: ‘Can I start by thanking on behalf of Theresa May and on behalf of everyone involved in Theresa’s campaign team by thanking and paying a warm tribute to Andrea Leadsom. Her actions this morning have shown what a principled and decent politician she is and how willing she is to put the interests of the country before her own. She is a true public servant. Theresa is currently on her way back to London from Birmingham and she will make a statement later today. But on her behalf I’d just like to say that she is enormously honoured to have been entrusted with this task by so many of her parliamentary colleagues.

Lara Prendergast

Graham Brady rules out re-opening the Tory leadership contest

From our UK edition

Following Andrea Leadsom's announcement that she is bowing out of the leadership race, Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, has confirmed that Theresa May is now the only remaining candidate. While he refused to confirm that she was now the country's Prime Minister, he ruled out re-opening the contest, which means it is almost certain that May has got the top job. Gove has also voiced his support: Andrea Leadsom spoke with great dignity and courage today. I wish her every success in the future. We should now move as quickly as possible to ensure Theresa May can take over as leader. She has my full support as our next prime minister.

Fraser Nelson

Andrea Leadsom drops out of leadership race

From our UK edition

In what must be the shortest-lived leadership campaign in the history of the Conservative Party, Andrea Leadsom has just announced that she's dropping out. She said in her resignation statement that there was not "sufficient support" from her colleagues - perhaps a nod to how many of them said that they would quit the party if she won. She said she wants "the immediate appointment of a strong and well-supported Prime Minister". And that woman, she said, must be Theresa May. In the four days since the formal leadership race began, it became painfully obvious that Ms Leadsom was simply unfit for the job. She messed up an interview with The Times, saying she didn't want to attack Theresa May for being childless but going on to do just that.

Sunday

Alex Massie

What kind of Brexit has Britain chosen? We need a general election to find out

From our UK edition

Britain voted for Brexit so Brexit is going to have to happen. That's the way it works and there's no point in Remainers wishing otherwise. But if Britain evidently voted for Brexit it is far less clear what kind of Brexit it voted for. As with the death of old man Talleyrand, we are left to wonder what the British people meant by this. Some things are becoming clearer, however and one of those things is that Andrea Leadsom does not actually need to win the Tory leadership battle to win the Brexit war. If Brexit trumps everything else, Leadsom may win even if Tory members choose Theresa May. Theresa May may have been a super-reluctant Remainer but she is going to have to campaign as though she was a mildly-reluctant Leaver.

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn hints at legal challenge if he’s kept off the ballot paper

From our UK edition

Jeremy Corbyn was insistent this morning on the Andrew Marr Show that he isn’t going anywhere. More than that: he insisted that Labour is ‘changing the way politics is done’. His opponents in the party would agree, as it happens. Corbyn is going nowhere, certainly not anywhere near to Number 10, but also nowhere near being a functioning Opposition leader. And he is changing the way politics is done, by making it more and more difficult for Labour to ever get into power. The interview itself was proof that under Corbyn, Labour cannot function as an Opposition.

Charles Moore

Is a new political party for Remainers really the way forward?

From our UK edition

Shocked Remainers want a new political party — pro-European, ‘pro-business’ and free of any viscerally right- or left-wing taint. They anxiously insist that it will not be like the SDP in the early 1980s, but it is hard to see why not. Both then and now, the appeal is to a particular idea of virtue in politics. Then as now, the new party defines itself by its distaste for people it sees as unvirtuous and lower-class. Then as now, it therefore lacks roots outside bits of London, university towns, and the well-off and well-educated. Above all — then as now — the new party underestimates the capacity of the Tory party to resist its appeal and of the Labour party, however useless its leader, somehow to survive.

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Angela Eagle threatens Labour leadership bid on Monday

From our UK edition

Finally, the Labour coup is about to begin. Or at least, Labour MPs are talking about the fact that the Labour coup is about to begin, after weeks of threatening it. After talks between the party’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson and Labour’s trade union backers broke up today, Angela Eagle has said she will launch her leadership challenge to Jeremy Corbyn on Monday. The talks broke down because Corbyn would not resign and the parliamentary Labour party would not accept his leadership after voting overwhelmingly in favour of a motion of no confidence two weeks ago, and so there was no possible compromise to reach. Corbyn’s camp are confident that they have the support of Labour members.

Isabel Hardman

Why Andrea Leadsom may still benefit from her naive comments about motherhood

From our UK edition

One of the rules of modern leadership contests is that at some point there is an almighty row about whether one of the candidates is just better than the other because she happens to have had children of her own. Labour reached that stage on 6 July 2015 when Helen Goodman wrote a piece saying she was supporting Yvette Cooper because she was a mother, which the Liz Kendall camp took exception to. The Tories reached it almost exactly a year later when Andrea Leadsom gave an interview to the Times in which she said she had a ‘real stake in the future of our country’ because she has children.

James Forsyth

May must sound optimistic about Brexit

From our UK edition

Theresa May’s biggest weakness in the Tory leadership race is that she backed Remain while most Tory members went Leave. But, as I say in The Sun this morning, if she can sound confident and optimistic about Brexit, then she will win and become Britain’s next Prime Minister. May needs to make clear that now the referendum result is in, she’s sees Brexit as an opportunity to be seized, not as a risk to be managed. She can’t afford to cede optimism on this to Andrea Leadsom. I understand that her Leave-voting supporters—Liam Fox, Priti Patel, David Davis and her campaign chair Chris Grayling—will all be out and about this weekend saying that May is the person to deliver exit.

Friday

Ross Clark

Sajid Javid is grabbing the Brexit bull by the horns

From our UK edition

While frustrated Remain campaigners continue to speak of economic Armageddon, a very significant move happened yesterday. Business secretary Sajid Javid flew off to Delhi to begin preliminary negotiations for a trade deal between Britain and India. It is significant because this is exactly the sort of deal that we have been forbidden from doing for the past 43 years. As members of the EU we are forbidden from signing our own trade deals with third countries. Instead, we must rely on deals collectively negotiated with the EU. Trouble is, the EU isn’t very good at negotiating them. It is painfully slow process because the competing demands of 28 different EU economies must be satisfied.

Isabel Hardman

What has happened to Labour’s coup?

From our UK edition

Things have gone mysteriously quiet in the Labour party. Every so often, Len McCluskey and Tom Watson emerge from a meeting, asking their comrades to give them a little bit more time before any of them move against Jeremy Corbyn. And nothing seems to happen. How much more time do the plotters need to give the unions and the party’s deputy leader before they give up and make a move on the leader? Or have thy already given up, and decided that they can’t defeat him and that it’s all over? Some reports in the past few days suggest that Labour MPs have marched all the way up the hill by resigning from the frontbench and passing a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn, only to get close to the summit and realise they don’t like heights.

Theo Hobson

The scapegoating of Blair is excessive

From our UK edition

Blair’s great mistake was his desire to believe the best of America. It must know what it’s doing in invading Iraq, he thought. And in 2002, for once, this mighty superpower was hurt, needy – he felt needed by the leader of the free world. Which must be an intoxicating experience. Many of the rest of us shared in this basic mistake, this assumption that this generally benign superpower should be trusted. It’s an assumption bolstered by hundreds of films in which American power saves the day. And it’s an assumption largely backed up by history: Western Europe has been made safe by American power, for many decades. Yes, he was at fault, for presenting flawed, biased intelligence to parliament, for failing to demand assurances about the post-invasion plan.

Alex Massie

Brexit has encouraged an eruption of nasty nativism. Why is anyone surprised by this?

From our UK edition

Even in an age of ridiculousness there is something preposterous about the sight of so many prominent Leavers clutching their pearls in horror as they contemplate the possibility - the real possibility - that Andrea Leadsom could become the next leader of the Conservative party and, by golly, Prime Minister too. I mean, where do they think she came from? Who created her? Mrs Leadsom's credentials to occupy the highest political office in the land come down to one single fact: she is the most virulently eurosceptic candidate available. That's a powerful thing, however, and those Leavers who think their creation can be safely kept in the laboratory may yet have cause to regret their complacency. Because it's not as easy as that. Sometimes things escape.

Thursday

Toby Young

I’ll vote for Theresa, but only if she passes these three tests

From our UK edition

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I wanted Michael Gove to be in the final two in the Conservative leadership race and I’m disappointed that he isn’t. As a Conservative Party member, I’m willing to vote for Theresa May, but on three conditions. First, she commits to repealing the 1972 European Communities Act. I’m less fussed about whether and when she triggers Article 50 – it was the 1972 European Communities Act that surrendered British sovereignty by making European law superior to British law. Repeal that Act, then pass another Act preserving all the laws that would thereby be rendered invalid and then decide which of those laws we want to keep and which we don’t.

Theo Hobson

Brexit was reckless but not immoral

From our UK edition

I voted Remain. I felt that the arguments for and against Brexit were pretty evenly balanced, except in terms of economic risk – and maybe geopolitical risk. So why risk it? But we did risk it. A reckless move, but not a morally indefensible one, as most Remainers are now saying. Let me explain why I’m on the fence about the morality of the decision. Let me come at it in a rather eccentric way – by talking about ideas in a rather general way. I think we have to start by considering what our most basic common creed is, what unites us (in as far as anything does) as a nation. I suggest that we call it secular humanism, our common creed.

Isabel Hardman

Gove camp nervous as Tory MPs go to vote again

From our UK edition

This afternoon we will find out which two Tory MPs will face the Conservative party members in the leadership contest. Theresa May is the favourite and is far out in front of her closest rival, Andrea Leadsom, who has a decent lead over the third candidate, Michael Gove. But neither have had a very good few days. Leadsom was mocked for talking about frontal cortexes at the first party hustings this week, and has endured a great deal of criticism about her claims she is an experienced City figure.

Seema Malhotra

Theresa May’s first test: guaranteeing EU citizens the right to stay

From our UK edition

On Sunday I watched in disbelief as Theresa May was asked about the status of EU citizens already in the UK. She failed to do the obvious – to guarantee as Home Secretary the rights of EU families living and working here to stay in Britain. In a debate on Monday not a single MP on either side of the House - whether Leave or Remain - supported the Government’s position. An opposition motion to support rights of EU nationals yesterday won by 245-2. Theresa May appears on course to become our next Prime Minister. She will have the responsibility on her shoulders of clearing up the mess we are in. This is her first test. This also is partly her mess. She is a Remainer who didn’t campaign. She played no meaningful role in the campaign to keep Britain in the EU.

Fraser Nelson

‘I had to step up’

From our UK edition

On the way to interview Michael Gove, we meet a government minister, an Old Etonian, who suggests we ask him, ‘How can anyone trust you ever again?’ Just a fortnight ago, proposing such a question would have been unthinkable: the Justice Secretary had a reputation for being one of the most consistent, decent and honourable men in the cabinet. When Gove agreed to back Boris Johnson’s leadership bid, the pair seemed a dream team. But on the morning of their campaign launch, Gove announced that Johnson was unfit for the job, so he’d stand himself instead. Then, he was knocked out by Conservative MPs who were still recovering from the drama.

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Theresa May love bombs Tory MPs

From our UK edition

The final parliamentary hustings of the Tory leadership contest has now taken place. With Theresa May assured of a place in the final two, the real interest was in whether Andrea Leadsom or Michael Gove could extract more from the occasion. Leadsom was first up, and I understand gave a better performance than she had on Monday night. She joked at the end of her speech, ‘I’m a quick learner—note I didn’t use the expression baby’s brains once’. But concerns were raised by her saying that she wouldn’t publish her tax return now but would let Tory MPs come and look at it if they wanted to.  Her answer that she would use trade envoys to negotiate a new trade deal with Europe also raised eyebrows from old hands.