Uk politics

Monday

Katy Balls

Why this week could end in more Brexit deadlock

From our UK edition

On paper, this week ought to be a decisive one for the government's Brexit position. After Theresa May's Brexit deal was voted down by 230 votes, MPs now have the chance to vote on their own amendments to that deal. The majority are non-binding – but they do carry political weight - while a handful would lead to legislation and therefore force the government's hand. The two amendments currently being talked up as the most likely to pass are the Yvette Cooper amendment to stop no deal and the Graham Brady amendment to ditch the backstop. The Brady amendment seeks to make clear that MPs will back May's deal if the backstop is replaced with alternative arrangements.

Theo Hobson

The liberal case for Brexit

From our UK edition

Anyone for Whexit? I voted Remain. The theoretical arguments seemed finely balanced, so boring old pragmatism decided it. On the one hand I feel vindicated by the current shambles. But on the other hand, oddly enough, I have become more conscious of the case for leaving. And if we really are leaving it seems worthwhile to accentuate this. But ‘Brexit’ feels tarnished by crude jingoism, and I’m a liberal. I propose that we affirm our exit on old-fashioned liberal grounds: Whig Brexit: Whexit. The assumption is that the EU is a great promoter and defender of liberal values. But ultimately it’s an unhealthy assumption. Liberal values are only fully real when the nation state upholds them, puts them into law.

Sunday

Steerpike

Corbynistas intervene on Venezuela

From our UK edition

Once upon a time Venezuela was talked up by British socialists – from John McDonnell to Richard Burgon – as an example of a better way. As Jeremy Corbyn put it back in 2013: 'Chavez showed us that there is a different and better way of doing things. It’s called socialism, it’s called social justice and it’s something that Venezuela has made a big step towards.’ Only ever since there were mass food shortages and toilet paper rations – with 82pc of households living in poverty – the majority of Corbynistas have gone a little quiet on the subject.

Steerpike

Momentum’s job search fails

From our UK edition

If there's one thing that really gets under the skin of Momentum, the campaign group for Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, it's that the economy has steadily improved under this Conservative government. While the group constantly tries to suggest that only Corbyn can rescue the country from economic peril, statistics that show, for example, that unemployment is falling across the country throw an awkward spanner in the works. The group has therefore recently alighted on a new response to counter suggestions that more people are in work, by pointing out that official employment statistics include people who only work one hour every week: https://twitter.

Saturday

John Keiger

Macron’s fight with Europe’s populists is backfiring

From our UK edition

In France, discontent has been brewing for years. Emmanuel Macron managed to set it alight by embarking on a series of reforms that sparked the gilet jaunes movement. In Europe it has been brewing too, and now Macron seems to be repeating the trick. Here the antipathy is from populist governments opposed to his ideas, not only on a future Europe but also his lesson-giving in how those countries should govern themselves. International politics are following a similar pattern to national politics. Macron sweeps onto the international stage with new ideas for reforming Europe, he accompanies that with acerbic throw-away quips on the competence and morality of particular leaders, they riposte and, gradually, individual protests coalesce into an axis of angry opposition to the French president.

James Forsyth

Can Theresa May get any Brexit plan through the Commons?

From our UK edition

Tuesday is the last chance for those MPs who want to secure as meaningful a Brexit as possible, I write in The Sun this morning. That evening, MPs will vote on a series of Brexit amendments designed to show the EU what kind of withdrawal agreement the Commons would accept. If one of them passes, then Theresa May can go back to Brussels and say: look, this is what will get the deal through my parliament. It would give her a decent chance of getting the EU to engage. But if none of these amendments can muster a majority, then the EU will simply sit tight. It knows that this parliament is fiercely opposed to no deal, and so isn’t concerned that the UK will actually go down that route. So far, there are a variety of amendments down.

Friday

Henry Newman

Eight problems with a no deal Brexit

From our UK edition

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 the negotiations, and watch her struggle to explain her own flagship policy.

Ross Clark

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

From our UK edition

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.

Robert Peston

The Tory coup that could bring down Theresa May

From our UK edition

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?

From our UK edition

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.

Fraser Nelson

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

From our UK edition

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 Bradleys. Someone digitally literate – who can file an FOI, navigate Photoshop and set up a Companies House alert.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Tory grandees table backstop amendment

From our UK edition

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’.

Steerpike

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

From our UK edition

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 former leader Hugo Chavez.

Katy Balls

MPs get cold feet about the Cooper no deal amendment

From our UK edition

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 far as to claim that Theresa May ought to suspend Parliament in order to stop it.

Katy Balls

The People’s Vote campaign isn’t dead yet

From our UK edition

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, and until we have the leader of the opposition’s backing, it would would not pass.

Wednesday

Rachel Riley

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

From our UK edition

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 the assembly hymns but the bacon sandwiches mum would feed us meant I didn’t quite know where we fit into all of this.

Ivan Rogers

The futility of the no-deal Brexit bluff

From our UK edition

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 about our future, it is now genuinely urgent that we get beyond the myth-making. I am not going to speculate pointlessly about the votes next week.

Andrew Willshire

How Germany helped shape the conditions for Brexit

From our UK edition

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.

Steerpike

Labour MP’s academies double standards

From our UK edition

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.

Lloyd Evans

Isn’t James Dyson supposed to be a Brexiteer?

From our UK edition

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 leapt to his defence. The suavely-dressed and sad-voiced MP reminded the house that Sir James has splurged cash all over the place.