Uk politics

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley

Luciana Berger’s departure is the beginning of the end for Labour

Manny Shinwell knew how to deal with anti-Semites. Born in London’s East End, reared in Glasgow, and once jailed for inciting a riot on Red Clydeside, the pipe-smoking pugilist was a tough, proud Jew. During a debate in parliament in 1938, Shinwell (then Labour MP for Seaham) was jabbing at the government when Tory MP Robert Bower heckled: ‘Go back to Poland’. Shinwell got up, crossed the floor and thumped Bower clean in the face, then turned to the Speaker and said: ‘May I make a personal explanation?’.  Eight decades later, his great-niece has delivered another bloody nose to the face of anti-Semitism. Only now, the anti-Semitism was in her party, a

Robert Peston

Tom Watson’s intervention spells trouble for Jeremy Corbyn

The second most important political act yesterday was the impassioned declaration of near UDI by the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Tom Watson. His sorrowful response to the resignation of Berger, Umunna, Leslie, Smith, Gapes, Coffey and Shuker was that they were wrong to resign but they were correct to identify that the party he loves has lost its way, especially over anti-Semitism. Watson was in effect setting himself up as shop steward of a parliamentary Labour Party that feels almost totally detached from the Labour leader and the shadow cabinet. In an initiative without precedent (that I know of), as deputy leader he will set up an informal backbench

Monday

James Kirkup

Corbyn’s cheerleaders are wrong to sneer at Which? magazine

First, a confession. Because I try not to spend too much time on Twitter, I sometimes miss “the story that everyone at Westminster is talking about” and struggle to keep up with village gossip. Worse, I lose track of the minor characters the ceaseless opera of poisonous soap, or fail to recognise them for what they are.  For instance, I only recently discovered that Aaron Bastani is actually a real person and not, in fact, someone’s parody of something. Sorry. Today on political Twitter, it seems that “everyone is talking” about Dr Bastani and Which? magazine, in the context of the new Independent Group of Labour MPs.  Dr Bastani suggested that

Alex Massie

In praise of the Labour splitters | 18 February 2019

The first thing to note is that it’s not about policy. The not-so secret seven MPs who left the Labour party this morning have not changed their policy preferences. They have not become Tories. Nor have they even become liberals. They could, with little difficulty, endorse much of the Labour party’s 2017 manifesto without compromising themselves in the slightest.  Because this break, this rebellion, this journey into exile, is not about policy. It is about character and values and so many of the other things the Labour party believes it holds dear to the extent it often behaves as though it thinks it owns a monopoly on these things. And

Steerpike

Watch: Angela Smith apologises over ‘funny tinge’ gaffe

The Independent Group is only a few hours old but already one of its leading members has made a blunder on air. Talking about race on the BBC’s Politics Live, Angela Smith said: ‘It’s not just about being black or a funny…tin…from the BME community’ Oh dear. Angela Smith has since apologised for her comments, saying that she ‘misspoke’:

James Forsyth

Will any Tory MPs join the Independent Group?

Is this a split in the Labour party or something more? At today’s launch, Chuka Umunna was clear that the Independent Group want to attract MPs from parties other than Labour. Tory party sources admit that they ‘would not be surprised’ if some Tory MPs were to join this new group. Right now, the values of this group seem fairly—for want of a better word—Blairite. The addition of any Tory MPs would make this group more ideological heterodox; and show if it can carve out a distinctive intellectual position. Politically, it would also mean that it was not just Labour who are split. But given the way that the Tory

Steerpike

Chuka Umunna identifies the Independent Group’s big flaws

Chuka Umunna has quit the Labour party and set up a new political party. Calling itself the Independent Group, Umunna said the party wants to go about ‘building a new politics’. But in a Q and A with journalists, Mr S couldn’t help but notice that Umunna also managed to spell out quite clearly the new group’s big problem. He told reporters: ‘The usual way things are often done in Westminster, is a little bit, you know, you have a podium, someone goes up and tells you how it is going to be.’ Perhaps this message might have been somewhat more compelling if Umunna had not just been addressing journalists in

Steerpike

Watch: Luciana Berger’s damning verdict on Labour

Luciana Berger and six other Labour MPs have just quit the Labour party. Explaining her reasons for quitting Corbyn’s party, Berger said she had come to the conclusion that Labour is ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’. She said she was ’embarrassed’ to stay put in Labour. Here is her damning verdict on the party: I have become embarrassed and ashamed to remain in the Labour party. I have not changed. The values which I hold really dear, and which led me to join the Labour party as a student almost 20 years ago, remain who I am. And yet these values have been consistently and constantly violated, undermined and attacked as the Labour

Saturday

James Forsyth

What can May now get on the backstop?

When Theresa May goes to Brussels next week to bat for changes to the backstop, she’ll do so with a large crack in her bat—I say in The Sun this morning. The symbolic defeat that MPs inflicted on her Brexit plan on Thursday night has significantly weakened her negotiating position. The EU doesn’t want to make significant changes to the backstop. When the Brady amendment passed the House of Commons, saying parliament would accept the deal if the backstop was replaced, the EU responded by saying that they didn’t think this parliament majority was ‘stable’. Thursday night’s vote helps them make that argument. I understand that when the Brexit Secretary

Thursday

Henry Newman

John McDonnell’s mask is slipping

One of the more interesting developments over the last year is the attempted transformation of John McDonnell from a hard-left activist who joked about “lynching” a female Conservative MP, towards a softer, more jovial, chancellor-in-waiting. It seemed to be going quite well. I appeared with McDonnell on Politics Live last year and he laughed heartily as I teased him about coveting the Labour leadership. SW1’s water-cooler chat is that McDonnell is a far more effective advocate of a Corbynite Labour position than Jeremy Corbyn himself, particularly because the Labour leader often looks so irritated at being asked relatively normal questions on television. But could that be about to change? The sheep’s

Richard Ekins

Why Brexit won’t lead to a bonfire of human rights

Faced with the prospect of the UK’s departure from the EU, some Britons are contemplating urgent measures, whether applying for an Irish passport or migrating to New Zealand. Nothing wrong with either, of course, but the latter is an odd reaction. After all, one of the implications of Brexit is that it restores the fundamental similarity between the structure of government in the UK and New Zealand, the last two bastions of the Westminster constitution. In both countries, parliamentary sovereignty is fundamental and judges do not reign supreme. EU membership has long complicated this picture, with the UK subject to binding European law, enforced by the confident and inscrutable –

Isabel Hardman

Will ‘Isis bride’ Shamima Begum really end up in a British prison?

What will the UK do about Shamima Begum, the schoolgirl who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State? The Times’ stunning scoop this morning about the 19-year old’s plea to be allowed home from the Syrian refugee camp prompted Security Minister Ben Wallace to tell the Today programme that ‘actions have consequences’ and that she could face prosecution. Some argue that as a teenager who left when she was just 15, she has been indoctrinated and needs rehabilitation, not punishment. Wallace may well agree with that, but it’s not something he’s likely to say in a broadcast interview, given it is still important for the government to send the message

Isabel Hardman

After Brexit defeat, Downing Street insists nothing has changed

After Theresa May mysteriously evaporated from the Commons following tonight’s government defeat, Downing Street has issued a statement insisting that nothing has changed. The official line is, somewhat tortuously, that the previous set of indicative votes from MPs were the ones that mattered, whereas this one didn’t. A No.10 spokesman said: ‘While we didn’t secure the support of the Commons this evening, the Prime Minister continues too believe, and the debate itself indicated, that far from objecting to securing changes to the backstop that will allow us to leave with a deal, there was a concern from some Conservative colleagues about taking no deal off the table at this stage.

James Forsyth

MPs have dealt May’s Brexit negotiating strategy a big blow

The government has been defeated by 45 votes tonight. This loss doesn’t force a change in policy on Theresa May, but it is a significant blow to her negotiating strategy. She has been saying to the EU that with legally binding changes to the backstop, she could get the withdrawal agreement through parliament. The EU will argue that this result shows that even with changes to the backstop, May couldn’t get a deal through. They’ll therefore become more forceful in their attempt to urge her to come to an arrangement with Jeremy Corbyn on a customs union. The ERG have, ironically, made it less likely that May will get anything

Isabel Hardman

Defeat looms for government as Brexiteers decide to abstain in key vote

The European Research Group has decided it will abstain on the government’s Brexit motion, which MPs will be voting on in the next hour. An ERG source said that there was a ‘collective decision’ at a meeting this afternoon to abstain on the motion if no other amendments to it were passed. Voting has begun, but Anna Soubry has suggested that she won’t be pushing her motion calling for the government’s no-deal assessments to be published, after ministers said they would do so. This means that there will definitely be a vote on the main motion, and with the ERG abstaining, the government looks as though it is heading for

Steerpike

Chris Williamson: Churchill was in the ‘right place at the right time’

Winston Churchill is a war hero who saved Britain from the Nazis. At least, that is what many think of a man consistently hailed as one of the greatest ever Brits. Not so Chris Williamson. Instead, the Labour MP agrees with the shadow chancellor John McDonnell that Churchill was a ‘villain’. Speaking on the BBC’s Politics Live, Williamson also said Churchill was in the ‘right place at the right time’ when the war was won and whatever Churchill’s achievements in stopping Adolf Hitler, ‘some of the things he said’ meant he was no hero. Mr S thinks it’s a shame that Williamson doesn’t take the same rigorous assessment of character

Melanie McDonagh

Isis bride Shamima Begum should be allowed home

So, what do you reckon then about the jihadi bride, Shamima Begum, unearthed by the Times’ Anthony Loyd in a refugee camp in Syria? Should she be brought back home for an NHS delivery for her imminent baby – with the cops hovering backstage – or left to stew in a Syrian refugee camp, to give birth in the same conditions as other mothers-to-be? I may be misjudging my readers here, but I fancy I can discern which way most of us would want to go. But the first thing to say about all this is that this wretched 19-year old is about the least important aspect of the Isis

Wednesday

Rupert Harrison

The moral of the Olly Robbins row? Don’t base policy on a lie

Olly Robbins will be trying to avoid the Prime Minister today after his hurricane strength gaffe was splashed all over the newspaper front pages. He deserves a fair share of the criticism that has come his way, but I’m sure most of us have mouthed off a little too loudly in the pub after a stressful day in the office. The PM will be especially frustrated because he has undermined one of Theresa May’s central claims – that the choice facing Parliament is a binary one between her deal and no deal. But she can’t blame Robbins for the fragility of her position. In fact this is just a specific

Isabel Hardman

Brexiteer Tories threaten Valentine’s Day defeat

Tomorrow’s Brexit vote has gone from being billed the ‘Valentine’s Day massacre’ to threatening a desperately dull anti-climax, and then back again to being quite interesting. This latest development comes courtesy of the European Research Group, which has said it could vote against the government on the motion that has been tabled because they object to its wording. This is another one of those neutral motions expressing government policy, which allows MPs to table motions expressing their own views. It currently reads: ‘That this House welcomes the Prime Minister’s statement of 12 February 2019; reiterates its support for the approach to leaving the EU expressed by this House on 29

Isabel Hardman

Chris Grayling gives Jeremy Corbyn a helping hand at PMQs

How do you put people off thinking that a no-deal Brexit might be alright? Jeremy Corbyn clearly thinks the best way to do this is to talk about Chris Grayling and the mess over the contract for ferry services. The Labour leader made this the focus of his stint grilling Theresa May at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, asking how on Earth she could have confidence in her transport secretary when the awarding of the contract has been such an embarrassment. May defended Grayling, pointing to government spending on the railways as a reason for backing him. She also attacked Corbyn for choosing the ferries as a line of attack, arguing