Uk politics

The Irish backstop and the arrangements to replace it are now the focus of the eleventh-hour Brexit talks. Their importance is not because of Ireland, but because of the battle for the UK’s constitutional freedom to decide the laws that govern this country’s economy and trade. Will the UK’s economic system break free of EU law allowing both an independent trade policy and the UK’s laws to diverge from the EU’s? ‘That is the point of our exit,’ as Boris Johnson told Donald Tusk in August. Or will there be continued subjugation or an eventual UK return to the bloc?

There was a fairytale quality to Nicola Sturgeon’s speech to the SNP conference this afternoon. On the one hand, she demanded a second referendum on independence next year; on the other, almost no-one in Scottish politics really believes there will be a referendum next year. In tandem with this rallying call for national liberation – an emancipation made ever more urgent by the looming Brexit fiasco – there ran another line of argument: conference delegates, like the wider nationalist movement, must be careful and canny and patient. Which is another way of saying that, whatever the headlines suggest, it’s probably not happening. At least not yet.

If today's Queen's Speech was meant to offer a preview of what the next general election and life after it will look like, you might be forgiven for wishing you were somewhere far, far away from British politics. The debate in the House of Commons this afternoon was turgid and pointless. It was almost as if everyone involved couldn't quite be bothered to rise to the occasion of a new legislative programme because they knew that it was more of a political messaging operation. Jeremy Corbyn gave one of his least convincing speeches as Leader of the Opposition, which is plumbing quite some depths. He managed to both dismiss the whole event as a charade, while indulging in line-by-line analysis of the Speech.

Boris Johnson is now in what's known in cricket as the 'Nervous Nineties', when a batsman becomes so anxious about reaching his century that he takes unusually conservative decisions - or is so nervous he accidentally gets himself out. We are now in what could be the final few days of the Brexit negotiations, and the Prime Minister is trying to be unusually cautious about what's said and done. Ministers are being urged to hold their nerve rather than make comments which could push the talks off course, and No. 10 is remaining very tight-lipped. In a cabinet call this afternoon which a number of ministers described as 'businesslike', Johnson updated his top team but made clear that there wasn't a great deal to say at this time.

It is one of the most remarkable turnarounds in recent political history. On Wednesday afternoon, the Brexit talks seemed pretty much dead—hence my piece in the magazine this week. Even the optimists in Downing Street were struggling to see anyway through. But by Friday lunchtime, the UK and the EU were agreeing to intensify negotiations as they searched for a deal. As I say in The Sun this morning, the negotiations going on in Brussels this weekend are serious: they aren’t just for the show. This doesn’t, though, mean that a deal will definitely be done. But things are on the move. Now, the sheer pace of this turnaround is a reason for caution.

Rory Stewart's announcement that he would run as an independent candidate for Mayor for London was typically civilised. This was no political suicide bomb. Instead Stewart waited for his erstwhile party’s conference to finish before making his move. But this trademark decency does not render his decision any less barking to his detractors. I’m on friendly terms with Stewart and had enthusiastically supported his Conservative leadership campaign which, after this abrupt defection, does leave me feeling like a bit of an arse if I’m honest. But Rory is very hard to dislike, not least because his innate decency, ability and desire to listen and respond to ordinary people is clearly authentic.