Uk politics

Thursday

Daniel DePetris

Isis’s collapse has sparked a new rift between Trump and Europe

The days of black-clad militants rampaging through cities, parading captives as war trophies and doing wheelies in U.S.-made Humvees are over. The Islamic State – which once presided over eight million people in a reign of terror across territory as large as the United Kingdom – is now confined to an orchard in the dusty Syrian village of Baghouz. The so-called caliphate is now just 700 square metres. Within days— certainly weeks —all of Isis’ territory will be retaken, the stragglers either killed in a barrage of US airstrikes or sent to Syrian Kurdish-run prison camps to the north. The demise of the caliphate, however, has given way to a

Johannes de Jong

For the Dutch, Brexit is a mistake – and a big opportunity

An advert in the Netherlands features a hairy beast warning about the looming departure of Britain from the EU. Move over Project Fear, this is Project Fur: a campaign aimed at urging businesses to brace themselves for a no-deal Brexit. So what do the Dutch make of the big blue Brexit monster? While the British media has been busy laughing at photos of the muppet-like creature straddling a desk as the Dutch foreign minister watches on, the truth is that this campaign has actually passed many people by. This is a shame: there are good reasons for Dutch folk to worry about the impact of an acrimonious Brexit. Such an outcome would

James Forsyth

Tories must temper their Brexit passions – or pay the price

There is a great opportunity in front of the Tories. As I say in the magazine this week, there’s 12 more years in power for the taking for them because of the split in the Labour party. But seizing this opportunity will require the Tories to temper their passions on Brexit. There are two Brexit outcomes that would be electorally disastrous for the Tories: no Brexit and no deal. No Brexit would be catastrophic because the Tories would have failed to deliver on the referendum result. The last two and a bit years would have been for naught and a pro-Brexit party would take huge chunks out of the Tories’

Robert Peston

The nine ministers who could quit if May doesn’t rule out no deal

On my show last night, the Home Secretary Sajid Javid captured why nine of his ministerial colleagues have told the Prime Minister they may have to resign next week (though he won’t be joining them). Javid said that a no-deal Brexit would be damaging for the UK, that he didn’t want it, that the risk of it had increased but that there was no way to stop it. Well four cabinet ministers and five junior ministers agree on everything but that last point. In two separate meetings with the PM on Monday, they told her that either she has to agree to ask the EU to delay Brexit, if it

Wednesday

Katy Balls

What Geoffrey Cox wants from Brussels

What does Theresa May want to get from Brussels? At Prime Minister’s Questions, Jeremy Corbyn pressed the Prime Minister on what type of concession she would be seeking from the EU on the backstop. May refused to divulge many details but the word in Whitehall is that the UK government is ready to present a specific proposal to Brussels. The expectation in government is that Attorney General Geoffrey Cox’s aim is to secure a joint interpretative exit mechanism with a notice period attached to it. Government sources say that the notice period ought to be around 12 months – though this isn’t necessarily a red line. Other government figures play

Stephen Daisley

How the Independent Group can survive – and thrive

And then there were eleven. The Independent Group has been enlarged today by the defection of moderate Tories Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen, who gave as their reason the Brexification of the Conservative Party. ConservativeHome’s executive editor Mark Wallace and others might dispute many of the charges, but the splitters describe a mood in the Tory Party that many will recognise, and that mood was set by the unchecked belligerence of Brexit ultras. TIG is no longer solely about Labour anti-Semitism but a lurch from the post-1997 centre ground by both main parties. The latest YouGov poll puts TIG in third place on 14 per cent. Are the Tiggers bringing

Isabel Hardman

Media exposure was the worst thing that happened to Shamima Begum

Why has Sajid Javid announced that he is revoking the citizenship of Shamima Begum? The 19 year old, who travelled as a teenager to join the Islamic State in Syria, has asked for ‘forgiveness’ from the UK, but last night the Home Secretary responded by saying he would be removing her status as a British citizen. He can do this, he argues, because she has a right to Bangladeshi citizenship, which means the government will not be rendering her stateless. A fair few people have suggested that this is about Javid’s own ambitions in the Conservative party, as this move will likely appeal to the Tory grassroots. It has already

Lloyd Evans

The Independent Group is doomed to follow in the SDP’s footsteps

It’s Day Three of the great insurrection against the tired, stale old politics. Only this morning, a fresh impetus was added to the movement. Chuka Umunna and his six escapologists have now been joined by four more asylum-seekers, one from Labour, three from the Tories. How these moral pioneers can bear to continue as members of our knackered and rotten parliament is unclear. The salary helps perhaps. The Houdinis made their first joint appearance at PMQs today and they tucked themselves up high on the opposition benches. The Speaker failed to invite any of them to open their gobs. A pity. The house would have hissed like a barbecue in

Isabel Hardman

Is the Independent Group already heading for a split?

The three Conservative defectors to the Independent Group gave a notably upbeat press conference this lunchtime. It was quite a contrast to the sorrowful tone struck by the seven Labour MPs who announced they were leaving on Monday. Heidi Allen claimed that she was ‘so excited and in a way that I haven’t felt since I was first elected’. She also cracked jokes about the three amigos as she opened the event.  It has never been fully clear why Allen joined the Conservative party over any other, but Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston both argued that the organisation had been transformed in the years since they were first elected. Like

James Forsyth

The Independent Group does more damage to Labour than the Tories

Today’s PMQs was a rather surreal occasion. Sitting high up on the opposition benches were the new Independent Group of MPs. But none of them tried to ask a question and both Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May chose to ignore the issue. Instead, we were treated to May repeatedly raising the defection of a Labour councillor in Brighton. I still think that this new group does more damage to Labour than the Tories. I doubt that many Tory voters will be attracted to a party led by the most ardent advocates of a second referendum. But the defection of these three Tory MPs risks creating an impression that the two

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems to Independent Group: please be our friends

In a parallel universe, the MPs who’ve left the Labour and Conservative parties this week would be joining the existing centrist party that shares their views on Brexit. But the Liberal Democrats haven’t had a look in, despite Vince Cable and before him Tim Farron claiming that they’d spoken to would-be defectors. Cable has just issued a statement saying that ‘there is clearly some very radical changes now afoot’ and offering to work with the new Independent Group. He said: ‘We will hold out the hand of friendship to the independent MPs with whom we already have a good working relationship.’ The Lib Dems have accepted that they have failed

Brendan O’Neill

The shame of those siding with Shamima Begum | 20 February 2019

At last, having kept pretty shtum about it for the past few years, the virtue-signalling set has mustered up some sympathy for women caught up in the horrific Isis vortex.  Unfortunately, though, their sympathy isn’t for the Yazidi women who were burned alive after refusing to become sex slaves for Isis jihadists. Or the Kurdish women who found themselves living under the brutal misogynistic yoke of the Isis empire. Or the Syrian and Iraqi women whose husbands and sons were beheaded for adhering to the wrong branch of Islam. No, their sympathy is for a woman who supported the movement that did all those things. Who provided moral succour to

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May ‘saddened’ as Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston quit the Tories

Theresa May has said she is ‘saddened’ by the decision of Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston and Anna Soubry to leave the Conservative party and join the new Independent Group of MPs. In statement released in the past few minutes, the Prime Minister said: ‘I am saddened by this decision – these are people who have given dedicated service to our party over many years, and I thank them for it. ‘Of course, the UK’s membership of the EU has been a source of disagreement both in our party and our country for a long time. Ending that membership after four decades was never going to be easy. ‘But by delivering

The Spectator

Full text: Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston’s Tory resignation letter

Dear Prime Minister. It is with regret that we are writing to resign the Conservative whip and our membership of the Party. We voted for you as Leader and Prime Minister because we believed you were committed to a moderate, open-hearted Conservative Party in the One Nation tradition. A party of economic competence representing the best of British business, delivering good jobs, opportunity and prosperity for all, funding world class public services and tackling inequalities. We had hoped you would also continue to modernise our party so that it could reach out and broaden its appeal to younger voters and to embrace and reflect the diversity of the communities we

Katy Balls

The Tory defections to the Independent Group could help Corbyn

After days of bad news for Labour over the decision of several moderates to quit and form The Independent Group, it’s now the turn of the Tories. Three Conservative MPs have today resigned the party whip to join the group. In a joint letter to the Prime Minister, Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen say they no longer feel at home in a party where the policies are so ‘firmly in the grip of the ERG and DUP’.  They will now join eight former Labour MPs in the newly formed group – bringing the total size up to 11. While the news has shocked some Conservatives, these three MPs

Steerpike

Watch: George Galloway compares journalist to Goebbels

George Galloway has just waded into Labour’s anti-Semitism row and it is safe to say his intervention won’t do much to calm things down. The firebrand former politician said the claims of anti-Semitism agains the Labour party were a lie – and he then compared the Sky News journalist interviewing him to Josef Goebbels. Here’s what he said: GG: ‘It is really a black-op what is going on here. This is pure Goebbelian propaganda.’ Niall Paterson: ‘We’ve just mentioned Luciana Berger, do you think it is entirely relevant to talk about Goebbelian propaganda?’ GG: ‘I do.’ NP: ‘We’ve got a Jewish Labour MP leaving because of anti-Semitism.’ GG: ‘I don’t believe she

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Could a meaningful vote come as early as next week?

Is a Brexit breakthrough imminent? The talk in Westminster tonight is that the government could soon have something to present to MPs on the Irish backstop. Geoffrey Cox – the Attorney General – has been in Brussels this week working with EU officials on a legally binding change. He has managed to charm some on the EU side and – in a sign of his commitment to the cause – is said to have threatened to sleep in the corridors if that’s what it took to get a deal done. At Cabinet today, Cox urged caution, telling colleagues there is still some way to go – yet Cabinet sources are optimistic

Isabel Hardman

Joan Ryan quits Labour and joins the Independent Group

Another Labour MP, Joan Ryan, has tonight announced she is leaving the party to join the Independent Group. This is significant, and not just because it creates a sense of momentum. Ryan is the first Labourite to leave who wasn’t involved in the months of secret planning meetings. She was, until fairly recently, arguing that the best thing to do would be to stay and fight to change the party back. Now, she has gone, releasing a potent statement about her reasons. Those reasons include what she calls ‘the scourge of anti-Jewish racism’, which ‘simply did not exist in the party before his election as leader’. She argues that she

James Forsyth

Sajid Javid is wrong to strip Shamima Begum of her British citizenship

Sajid Javid’s decision to strip Shamima Begum of her British citizenship leaves me deeply uneasy. I can understand why a Home Secretary charged with keeping the public safe would want to do whatever possible to keep this woman out of the country. But Begum was born in this country, grew up here and was educated here. This, surely, makes her British. As a country, we should want to take charge of investigating her and, if the evidence is there, prosecuting her. After all, she offended against the ties that bind when she headed from this country—a liberal democracy with the rule of law—to go and serve in a so-called caliphate

Steerpike

Watch: Angela Smith blames ‘funny tinge’ comment on tiredness

Angela Smith unwittingly became the story of the day yesterday when she referred to people of a ‘funny tinge’ on the BBC’s Politics Live. Smith apologised – but still the story is dragging on. Today, the MP was asked to explain her comments, and she came up with a new excuse: she was tired. Here’s what she said: ‘Look, I never meant to say that. I misspoke really badly. I was very tired at that point. I had had six hours of press engagement and I was very tired. I was very tired. I misspoke really, really badly.’ Mr S isn’t sure that the answer to all this is for