Uk politics

Wednesday

Katy Balls

Government score an own goal on citizens’ rights resignation

This evening the government accepted an amendment to ensure the EU citizens’ rights package in the Withdrawal Agreement still stands if the U.K. leaves without a deal. The amendment tabled by Tory MP Alberto Costa won widespread support in the Commons – an endorsement from the Home Secretary and was eventually taken on by No 10. Despite this, Costa will head home this evening having left his role as a Parliamentary Private Secretary for the Scotland Office. Costa tended his resignation earlier today as PPSs are not supposed to put down amendments. I understand Costa was asked whether he still wanted the amendment to be in his name – he

Lloyd Evans

Has the Independent Group ‘revolution’ fallen flat already?

Ten days since the start of the Great February Revolution (as historians are unlikely to call it) and the breakaway MPs must be feeling a bit miffed. The rebels, tagged as ‘TIGs’ in the press, are blessed with every advantage a political movement could hope for – apart from a logo, a creed, a headquarters, a constitution and a following. The 11-strong group have become the silent stars of PMQs. Seen but not heard. The Speaker failed again this Wednesday to ask a TIG to speak. Does their reticence signify anything? Perhaps trouble is brewing and the TIG bigwigs are trying to stop the membership from cracking up into dissident

Steerpike

Watch: Kate Hoey’s damning verdict on the Independent Group

Labour’s shift towards a second referendum has not gone down well with the party’s MP for Vauxhall. So will Kate Hoey be joining the gang of defectors and throwing her lot in with the Independent Group? Don’t bet on it. Hoey said she had no plans to sign up with what she called ‘that little rump’. Hoey also told the BBC’s Politics Live that the TIGers were ‘obsessed about staying in the European Union’. Here is her damning verdict on the new party: I made it very clear that I was going to be supporting the referendum, even though I was in a Remain seat. Some of the people who

Steerpike

Watch: Sajid Javid gets into a muddle over Brexit

Brexit is confusing for the best of us, but Mr S. would hope that the Home Secretary would at least manage to stay abreast of the latest developments of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Unfortunately not. Popping up in front of MPs at the Home Affairs Committee, ‘The Saj’ got in a muddle when asked whether the Government would be backing the Costa amendment on guaranteeing EU citizens rights under no-deal. Here’s what happened: Sajid Javid: You asked me what was wrong with that (the Costa) amendment? Stuart McDonald: Yes SJ: Nothing SM: So the Government is supporting it then? SJ: Yes. When was the Government not supporting that? SM:

Matthew Lynn

A Brexit delay would be bad news for Britain’s economy

It would stop us crashing out. It would give us enough time to negotiate a free-trade deal. It would allow business time to prepare, and for the government to put in place all the extra infrastructure we might need once we are outside the European Union. As the deadline draws closer and closer, the pressure is mounting for a delay to our departure from the EU. At first that was just likely to be a few week or months. But now Brussels is talking about two years. But hold on. That is crazy. Sure, plenty of big businesses will be supporting that, and lots of people will be arguing it is

Tuesday

Steerpike

Seven things we learnt from an evening with Jacob Rees-Mogg

This evening Jacob Rees-Mogg joined Rod Liddle in being able to say he has sold out the London Palladium for a Spectator event. The arch-Brexiteer appeared before a packed crowd – of over 2,000 – for an in conversation with editor Fraser Nelson. Despite a busy day in the Commons on Brexit and a spot on the stage, the Moggster still found time in the interval to help out on the ice cream stall. Here are seven Rees-Mogg takeaways from the event: 1. Most people who want to delay Brexit want to stop Brexit In reference to the news today that Theresa May will give MPs a chance to vote to

Rod Liddle

My suggestions for Justin Welby’s Brexit prayers

Would anyone like to join me in the “Five Days of Prayer” that Archbishop Welby has announced to mark the days that we leave the European Union? (Yes, sure, IF we do. Otherwise I assume there will be five days of rejoicing.) I will be praying on Day One for Welby to be replaced by a less gullible, less virtue signalling, less privileged person. Day Two will be a prayer that the Church of England start dealing with personal morality rather than grandstanding political gestures. Day Three will be the prayers to stop Muslims preaching in CofE churches, until such time as Islamic states allow Christians to proselytise without getting

Nick Herbert

The EU must budge on the backstop if it wants to avoid no deal

The European Union does not want ‘no-deal’. Neither do the majority of people or politicians in the UK. Most of us recognise that to leave without a deal would be potentially damaging to both the UK and the EU, a risk to be avoided. But unless Brexit is stopped altogether the only way to prevent ‘no deal’ is to agree a deal. The date of the UK’s departure may now be delayed, but even a short delay would be controversial enough. And delay will only postpone the choice which, sooner or later, must be made. In one sense a deal is tantalisingly close to being agreed. Despite initially rejecting the Withdrawal

Katy Balls

May offers MPs a vote to prevent no-deal Brexit

Faced with the prospect of defeat on an amendment to stop no deal, Theresa May has attempted to stave off that rebellion by promising MPs a vote to stop a no-deal Brexit. After a long and fiery Cabinet (James has the details here), the Prime Minister addressed the House to update MPs on her government’s progress in the negotiations. She said that Geoffrey Cox was working with Brussels to win changes to the backstop and reconfirmed her promise to hold a meaningful vote on her deal by 12 March. However, should her deal be rejected by the House for a second time, May promised to hold a vote by 13

James Forsyth

Amber Rudd, Greg Clark and David Gauke labelled ‘kamikaze’ ministers in tense Cabinet

Today’s Cabinet was not a happy affair. I’m told that Liam Fox, Gavin Williamson and Andrea Leadsom all made clear their grave concerns about the Government’s new strategy. There was considerable anger at Amber Rudd, Greg Clark and David Gauke for how they have heaped pressure on May to offer this vote on a delay if the meaningful vote fails on the 12th of March. Liz Truss labelled them ‘kamikaze Cabinet Ministers’ and Andrea Leadsom was, I’m told, audibly furious. Brandon Lewis, Julian Smith, Jeremy Wright, Damian Hinds and James Brokenshire all criticised the way this trio had behaved. Michael Gove asked how May would whip in the vote on

Brendan O’Neill

Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit betrayal is complete | 26 February 2019

Let us consider the gravity of Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement that Labour will push for a second referendum. In siding with the so-called People’s Vote lobby, Corbyn has betrayed Labour’s traditional working-class base, who tend to favour leaving the EU. He has betrayed his party’s own manifesto in the 2017 general election, which promised to respect the outcome of the referendum. He has betrayed his old Labour mentors, most notably his hero Tony Benn, who was the left’s most articulate critic of the EU. And he has betrayed himself. He has betrayed his own longstanding and correct belief that the EU is an illiberal, undemocratic, anti-worker outrage of an institution. Has

Monday

Katy Balls

Sparks fly at Parliamentary Labour Party meeting on second referendum

Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement that the Labour party is prepared to back another EU referendum to prevent a ‘damaging Tory Brexit’ was intended to placate Remain-leaning MPs. However, it’s also managed to irk those Labour politicians representing Leave seats. Tonight MPs gathered for a fiery meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. It was standing room only as MPs crowded in to try and make sense of the latest Brexit development. Addressing MPs, Jeremy Corbyn struck a conciliatory tone – and according to a former shadow cabinet member present he gave one of his best speeches to date as he called on the party to come together. However, the announcement that Labour

Katy Balls

How can the government avoid defeat this week?

Theresa May begins the week with a chunk of her party growing increasingly frustrated with her handling of Brexit. The Prime Minister announced over the weekend that she would not bring her deal back to be voted on in the coming days – instead she has promised to hold a second meaningful vote by March 12. This has led to accusations of can-kicking from members across the House. However, May has grown used to such criticism – the thing No. 10 is worried about is whether ministers will be so dismayed by the move that they vote for an amendment on Wednesday which seeks to force the government to take

Sunday

Robert Peston

Theresa May has picked the day on which Brexit will live or die

  It is playing out just as Olly Robbins – the civil servant negotiating Brexit for the PM – told his mates it would in that Brussels bar, as overheard by my ITV colleague Angus Walker. Because the PM has just said that she will not put a reworked Brexit deal to MPs for a vote till 12 March. Well actually she said “we will ensure that happens by 12 March” – which probably means on 12 March. And that in turn means MPs will face what may be their last chance to decide whether the UK leaves the EU with a deal desperately close to the wire, 17 days

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Chuka Umunna hits out at Jeremy Corbyn

Chuka Umunna – I cannot vote to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister After a week which has seen 11 MPs leave their parties, Sophy Ridge interviewed Chuka Umunna, once seen as one of Labour’s rising stars, about why he had decided to quit: CU: After really soul-searching on this issue, can I, in all conscience, say that I want to make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister? And the team around him, put them in charge of our national security? At the 2017 general election, let’s just be honest, nobody thought that was going to be a prospect. At a future general election, it could be a prospect and in all conscience

Saturday

James Forsyth

What will the Commons do to Brexit next week?

Brexit is back in the Commons next week. As I write in The Sun this morning, two of the big questions are: what will Eurosceptic Tories accept in terms of changes to the backstop and will the Cooper amendment pass. A document circulating among Tory Eurosceptics sets out what MPs should and shouldn’t regard as a meaningful change to the backstop. It warns that assurances from the EU Council would be ‘worthless’ and that changes to the political declaration would be ‘not legally binding’. It says that an interpretative instrument would have, ‘Some legal value’ but ‘would be a face-saver that would be legally pretty meaningless.’ Interestingly, though, it suggests

Friday

Steerpike

Andrew Adonis’s case for a second referendum falls flat

It’s Andrew Adonis’s birthday and how better for him to mark the occasion than with a tweet about Brexit? Adonis, who has busied himself as chief cheerleader for the campaign to stop Brexit, took to Twitter today to deliver his verdict on how he thought momentum towards a second referendum had grown beyond all doubt: But Mr S. isn’t convinced that the example he used really helped advance his cause. In the 2016 referendum, Islington was one of the top five strongholds for Remain in the entire country, with 75.2 per cent of voters opting for Britain to stay put in the EU. It seems that in the years since,

Katy Balls

Cabinet ministers look to May for Theresa May’s exit date

Theresa May is currently busy trying to work out a way to get her Brexit deal through Parliament. Should the Prime Minister succeed in the coming weeks, No. 10 will then move to the daunting task of somehow getting all the accompanying legislation through. Both of these tasks are regarded as incredibly difficult yet even if May does succeed on both counts, she will receive little in the way of peace as a reward. Talk in government has already turned to May’s exit date. Although the Prime Minister is technically immune from challenge for a year after winning a December confidence vote, ministers believe she will go before the year

Stephen Daisley

Ian Austin’s refusal to join the Independent Group shows the party is Continuity Remain

Ian Austin has become the ninth MP to quit Labour, blaming the party’s culture of anti-Semitism. He tells the Express and Star: ‘The Labour Party has been my life, so this has been the hardest decision I have ever had to take, but I have to be honest and the truth is that I have become ashamed of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.’ He continues: ‘I am appalled at the offence and distress Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party have caused to Jewish people. It is terrible that a culture of extremism, anti-Semitism and intolerance is driving out good MPs and decent people who have committed their life to mainstream

Katy Balls

Ian Austin quits Labour – but doesn’t join the Independent Group

Here we go again. This morning another Labour MP has announced they are quitting Jeremy Corbyn’s party over its handling of anti-Semitism allegations. Ian Austin – the MP for Dudley North – has told his local paper that he has grown tired of the ‘culture of extremism, anti-Semitism and intolerance’ in today’s Labour party: ‘I think Jeremy Corbyn has completely changed what was a mainstream party into a completely different party with very different values. I always tell them the truth and I could never ask local people to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister.’ Austin’s resignation comes after eight Labour MPs and three Conservatives this week quit their respective parties