Uk politics

Friday

Henry Newman

Eight problems with a no deal Brexit

I’ve got sympathy with those tempted to tell the Brussels elite to stuff their Brexit deal. Quite a few of my relatives and friends feel a two-fingered salute is the appropriate response to demands for £39 billion and what they see as the naked instrumentalisation of the Irish border. They listen to Emmanuel Macron and European leaders drip disdain on the British electorate for exercising a right to leave the Union afforded to all member states in EU law, watch Jean-Claude Juncker’s weird hair-fluffing antics, and read about top German MEP Elmar Brok’s dodgy scheme to profit from European Parliament tours. They think Theresa May has made a pig’s ear of

Ross Clark

The new mood of Question Time audiences reflects the changing Brexit debate

Earthquakes in public opinion do not happen often, and when they do they can catch commentators unawares. But if you want to see one in motion you should go back and watch the last two editions of Question Time. Until recently, the BBC show could be relied upon to have a loud contingent of groaning audience members capable of drowning out the ‘gammon’ tendency. The programme even managed to find a broadly pro-Remain audience in Clacton, the one and only seat which Ukip ever managed to win at a general election. But no longer. The arrival of Fiona Bruce has coincided with a sharp change in audience tone. When, last

Robert Peston

The Tory coup that could bring down Theresa May

I learned two things yesterday that will give extra frisson to those votes on Tuesday, when MPs attempt to wrest control of Brexit from the PM. First is that the six Tory MPs on the executive of the 1922 committee that comprises all Tory MPs, and who are led by Sir Graham Brady, hope and expect the Prime Minister to give official backing to the amendment to her motion that they have all signed. It “requires the Northern Ireland backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border; supports leaving the European Union with a deal and would therefore support the Withdrawal Agreement subject to this change”.

Jonathan Miller

Why doesn’t Emmanuel Macron like Britain?

Why is Emmanuel Macron raging against Britain? The French president has returned to the subject of the British once again in the course of his Great National Debate. To be honest, thus far this has been something of a great Macron soliloquy, as he finds it difficult to stop talking. It was inevitable that during one of his lengthy televised discourses (there have now been three) he would turn once again to his new favourite subject, and so he did. As he strutted across the stage in Drôme, holding forth to an audience of local worthies that looked more bemused than enthusiastic, Macron declared that the British were mad, their referendum

Fraser Nelson

Apply now: The Spectator’s political mischief internship (no CVs please)

Every summer, The Spectator runs a paid internship scheme, which we arrange by categories: research, editing, data/tech, social media. Last year we added a new category: the political mischief internship. The quality of applicants was so extraordinary that we hired one of the applicants, John Connolly, who now works for The Spectator full time as assistant digital editor. So we’re bringing it back for the new year – and out of season. Given the year-round demand for news, politics and an explanation to it all, we are looking for interns to help assist with Coffee House as soon as possible. We’re looking for someone who knows their Ben Bradshaws from Ben

Thursday

James Forsyth

Tory grandees table backstop amendment

One of the most dramatic examples of how Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement had lost the support of her backbenches came when Graham Brady—the elected chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs—walked into the no lobby. Brady has now put down an amendment ahead of Tuesday’s vote which makes clear in what circumstances he would back the agreement. It says the House would support the withdrawal agreement if the government and the EU ‘replace the backstop with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border’. The amendment is backed by the officers of the 1922 Committee—three of whom voted for May’s deal last week, and three of whom opposed it; the

Steerpike

Compare and contrast: Labour and Russia respond to Venezuela’s crisis

Venezuela is a country in crisis. Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets calling for socialist leader Nicolas Maduro to go. Britain, the United States, Canada and seven south American countries agree, saying that Juan Guaidó should take his place as interim leader. But not everyone agrees that Maduro – who has brought his country to its knees – must go. Labour frontbenchers – including Diane Abbott, who said in 2012 that Venezuela ‘shows another way is possible’ – have been noticeably quiet on the subject of Venezuela today. So, too, has the party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn, who back in 2013 praised the legacy of the country’s

Katy Balls

MPs get cold feet about the Cooper no deal amendment

Is a no-deal Brexit about to be taken off the table? This is the expectation in Westminster after Yvette Cooper tabled an amendment to prevent the UK leaving the EU without a deal. The amendment paves the way for legislation that would mean ministers had to extend Article 50 if a no-deal Brexit looked likely. The Labour leadership are considering backing it – though there is some debate about whether Article 50 ought to be extended in three month batches rather than than the nine month period currently specified in Cooper’s bill. Brexiteers are so worried the amendment will pass that some – including Jacob Rees-Mogg – have gone so

Katy Balls

The People’s Vote campaign isn’t dead yet

It’s not been a great week for the People’s Vote campaign with several reports of internal rows and splits within the group. Today their attempts to bring about a second referendum hit another stumbling block. A faction of ‘People’s Vote’ backing MPs – including Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston and Labour’s Chuka Umunna – announced they are pulling their amendment calling for a second vote. Had they pressed on, there is a chance it would have been selected by the Speaker to be voted on next week. Announcing the decision, Wollaston said: ‘With great regret, we will not be laying [an amendment calling for a second referendum] because at this stage,

Wednesday

Rachel Riley

Why I spoke out about Labour’s anti-Semitism shame

If you told me this time last year that, come January 2019, I’d be standing in Parliament, addressing a room full of people at a Holocaust memorial event, describing the hideous abuse I’ve been receiving daily since I started speaking about the growing problem of anti-Semitism in the UK, I wouldn’t know where to begin with my incredulity. My own identity as a Jew has been a confusing one. As I often joke, my mum’s Jewish and my dad’s Man United, and we’ve worshipped far more often at the Theatre of Dreams than I’ve ever been to shul. As a child, I knew not to sing the Jesus bit in

Ivan Rogers

The futility of the no-deal Brexit bluff

We desperately need clear and honest thinking about our choices – not just for the weeks but for the years, indeed decades, ahead. Our political debate is bedevilled by what, at the time I resigned, I termed “muddled thinking”, and by fantasies and delusions as to what our options really are in the world as it is – as opposed to several different worlds people on different sides of the debate would prefer to inhabit. These fantasies, which one would have hoped would be dissipating by now in the face of reality, are being propagated on all sides. Denialism is pretty universal. But if we are to take good decisions

Andrew Willshire

How Germany helped shape the conditions for Brexit

German political leaders, industrialists, artists and sportspeople wrote to the Times last week urging Brits to reconsider and stay in the EU. The letter was a mixture of gratitude that Britain had been willing to let Germany rejoin the ranks of civilised nations after the horrors of war, and a rather patronising list of the oh-so-adorable British quirks and foibles: our black humour, our curious habit of drinking tea with milk, drinking ale, driving on the left and pantomimes. But what really struck me was that, for all the warm words, there was no recognition that modern German politics might have played a role in Brexit, let alone a hint of contrition. In

Steerpike

Labour MP’s academies double standards

From an outside view, one could be forgiven for thinking now is a good time for academies in the UK. Figures show more than half of England’s children are now educated in academies – state schools run by independent charitable trusts but funded and overseen by central government – while one such academy Brampton Manor, in east London, recently made headlines thanks to 41 of its students winning offers from Oxbridge. However, not everyone agrees. Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour party is dead set against academies – its official policy is to halt the creation of any new academies or free schools should the party takes power. So, Mr S was curious to see

Lloyd Evans

Isn’t James Dyson supposed to be a Brexiteer?

History will remember Sir James Dyson as the pioneer of the bagless vacuum-cleaner. Thanks to his genius, we are now able to interrupt our chores and stare in amazement at mini-tornados of dust and filth swirling around in a transparent cylinder. This void of rubbish has been exported all over the world – not unlike our parliamentary system. But its knighted creator made an error this week when he announced that Singapore is to be the new home of his world HQ. This looks like an endorsement of the EU which has just struck a trade-deal with Singapore. The Bagless Wonder is supposed be a Brexiteer. Tory backbencher James Gray

Katy Balls

Michel Barnier confirms Brexiteer fears

When Eurosceptic MPs voted down Theresa May’s Brexit deal last week, the hope was that this would send a strong signal both to the Prime Minister and Brussels that strong changes were needed if it were to have any hope of passing. The problem is that the scale of the defeat – by 230 votes – means that the changes Leave MPs want to see are not the changes that the EU has in mind. In an interview with the Luxembourg Times, chief negotiator Michel Barnier says that he does not believe the troubled backstop is ‘the central issue’. Instead, he believes the numbers for a Brexit deal can be

Tuesday

James Kirkup

Brexit is making Tories unforgivably careless about the union

On Saturday, a car bomb went off in the UK. In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, to be exact. It was the latest in a long, long list of terrorist-related incidents in Northern Ireland, many of them carried out by men who wish to unite the island of Ireland in one state. Today, the European Commission stated, more bluntly than it ever has before, that Britain leaving the EU without a deal will mean a hard border between the EU (Ireland) and the UK (Northern Ireland). That means checkpoints and men in uniform policing the physical division of the island of Ireland. Let us, if such a thing is possible, set aside questions

Nick Cohen

Snobs and mobs agree on the cost of a second referendum | 22 January 2019

Britain moved a step close to Weimar yesterday when the Prime Minister used the threat of terrorism to get her way. Being a conservative woman of the upper-middle class, Theresa May did not precisely mimic the cries of ‘there will be blood’ that come from the right’s more deranged corners. You don’t talk like that if you want to get on in Thames Valley society. Rather the Prime Minister issued her warning in the careful language of a bureaucrat. ‘There has not yet been enough recognition of the way that a second referendum could damage social cohesion by undermining faith in our democracy,’ she said. You would have missed her intent

James Forsyth

Jeremy Hunt proposes a plan to make the backstop time-limited

Cabinet today was not as dramatic as some had expected. No one argued for ministers being allowed a free vote on the Cooper / Boles amendment. Indeed, I’m told the Chief Whip’s plea for ministers to stick to collective responsibility went unchallenged. Perhaps, the two most interesting contributions came from Jeremy Hunt and David Gauke. Gauke questioned the government’s new approach. He said he was worried that even if the government did get something on the backstop, there still wouldn’t be enough Tory MPs backing the deal for it to pass. While Hunt argued that the best thing for the government to do was to get parliamentary support for a

Rod Liddle

In defence of Diane Abbott

The question I had hoped to pose this week was this: “Do people dislike Diane Abbott because she is black and a woman, or because she is useless?” But then I worried that we would come to a fairly definitive conclusion a long time before my allotted 1,000 words had been used up. “The latter, I think,” is the response I have heard time and time again, both from Labour supporters and Tories. For the entire day before Abbott’s appearance on Question Time, in which she thinks she was treated badly on account of the colour of her skin and her gender, my wife had been bouncing around the house

Steerpike

Watch: David Blunkett despairs at Chris Williamson’s Brexit stance

David Blunkett once ruled the roost in the Labour party but under Jeremy Corbyn, Blair’s old acolytes are mostly ignored within their old party. So it’s no surprise that there was little for Blunkett to do other than hold his head in his hands as Corbynista favourite Chris Williamson spelled out his views on Brexit today. Appearing on the BBC’s Politics Live, Williamson said he wasn’t that bothered by a no deal Brexit because the ‘key thing’ for a future government to focus on is ‘redistributing income and wealth’. Williamson admitted that economic growth might not be quite as fast if Britain did leave the EU without a deal, but