Uk politics

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Can May really win back MPs’ trust?

How can MPs trust what ministers say after the Brexit fiasco of the past few days? That’s been the theme of the Commons emergency debate on the meaningful vote so far, with phrases like ‘shredded her credibility’ being bandied about. Initially, the most stinging criticism came from opposition MPs, but those MPs are not the usual suspects who chant blandly about how you can ‘never trust the Tories’. They’re senior backbenchers like Hilary Benn and Angela Eagle. And they speak for a large number of Tory MPs, too, who feel that there is little reason to trust what a minister or indeed a whip tells them. Those Tory MPs range

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May gets locked inside her car

Poor old Theresa May. The PM is hopping across Europe in a desperate bid to try and salvage her Brexit deal. But quite predictably things aren’t going well. After arriving in Berlin to meet Angela Merkel, Theresa May got off to a bad start – by getting locked in her car. Mr S is pleased to report that it wasn’t long before the PM was freed, although he suspects that not all Tory MPs will be pleased about that….

Steerpike

Watch: John Bercow burns Philip Hammond

John Bercow gave Labour MPs a helping hand in the Commons yesterday by making his thoughts known on the Government’s decision to delay a vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal. The Speaker said the hold-up was ‘deeply discourteous’. But it seems he hasn’t stopped his mission of making life tricky for the Tories. Philip Hammond urged John McDonnell to vote for the PM’s withdrawal arrangement because it was the best that was on offer. But unfortunately for the Chancellor his remark teed up Bercow to take a pop at him: ‘It’s quite difficult to vote for something if there isn’t a vote’ Mr S thinks that Bercow does have a

Alexander Downer

No deal need not be a disaster

Spare a thought for us foreigners. We’re desperately trying to understand the meaning of the Brexit arguments being thrown around in the House of Commons. We all have our own countries too, so we view those arguments through the lens of our homelands. So here are a few reflections on how we react.  Theresa May’s deal has the UK leaving the voting structures of the EU but remaining in the Customs Union until the EU gives the UK permission to leave. Australia and New Zealand have a free trade agreement and co-ordinate their regulatory regimes through a joint council. But they certainly don’t have a customs union otherwise neither country would

Ross Clark

May’s delay has made a leadership challenge more likely

How painfully clear it is what happens next. Theresa May returns from her European travels with some kind of non legally-binding piece of paper saying that the EU would rather not enact the backstop if it can possibly avoid it, and, some time in January we finally have the crushing Commons defeat that we should have had today. Unless, that is, Conservative MPs finally overcome their chronic writers’ block and get their 48 letters to Graham Brady. It has become a received wisdom that May has somehow bought herself time by delaying the vote on the withdrawal bill – that she has stayed the executioner’s axe. Yet the opposite is

James Forsyth

It’s time to send Geoffrey Cox – not Olly Robbins – to Brussels

Theresa May is on a tour of European capitals today, while Olly Robbins was spotted back in Brussels yesterday. But it isn’t Robbins who May should have sent to Brussels but Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general. May’s problem right now isn’t technical but parliamentary, how to get the withdrawal deal through the Commons. It isn’t reasonable, or even fair, to expect a civil servant—which is what Robbins is—to have a finger-tip feel for what language or phrase might reassure Tory MPs. Cox, having held dozens of meetings with Ministers and MPs to discuss their concerns about the backstop, is far better placed to do that. Sending a Brexiteer minister to

James Kirkup

The lies and liars of Brexit

I started my first job at Westminster in 1994, more than half a lifetime ago. Almost all of my career has been spent watching politicians, talking to politicians, writing about politicians. I covered the case for war in Iraq and the war’s dismal descent into failure. I was part of the Telegraph team writing about MPs expenses. I’ve written about more ministerial resignations, scandals, failures of public policy and abdications of leadership than I can remember. None of those failures has ever left me quite as bewildered and despairing as I am today, pondering the latest act in the national farce that is Brexit. Bewildered, despairing and surprisingly angry.  Surprisingly because

Stephen Daisley

The deep state needs to step up its campaign against Jeremy Corbyn

It’s the lowest point in British espionage since Pierce Brosnan. A top secret cyber hit squad has been busted trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn through the medium of Twitter. At least that’s the claim from the Sunday Mail, a left-leaning Scottish tabloid, which has exposed the Institute for Statecraft as ‘a secret UK Government-funded infowars unit’.  The Institute is based in a grotty old Victorian mill in Fife and can be distinguished from every other building in Fife in that it’s a mill. It doesn’t look like a place where they knock back shaken-not-stirred martinis in between designing fountain pens that double as rocket launchers but, what with austerity, maybe

The Spectator

Letters of no confidence in Theresa May: live updates

UPDATE: 48 letters of no confidence have now been reached. It’s been four long weeks since the last rebellion against Theresa May, when the ERG and Brexiteers fell short of the numbers they needed to trigger a leadership election. Now, it’s being reported that Tory MPs have had enough, and are once again submitting letters of no confidence to the chairman of the 1922 committee, Graham Brady. Speculation is rife that the total number of letters has already been reached this evening. Once 48 letters have been submitted, a confidence vote will be triggered. But before them, Brady is likely to let the PM know in private first, to give her

Monday

Charles Day

The ECJ wants to take back control of Brexit

Given that the ECJ often takes years to give an opinion, the speed of its Brexit judgement is unprecedented. Now and again, the mask slips: in theory the ECJ’s court judicial, cares only about good law. In practise this is nakedly political – explicitly so this time, given the vote tomorrow. It’s being breathlessly reported that ECJ has said Britain can now abandon Brexit unilaterally, without permission. This is just wrong. Unilateral means on our own. We can’t do that under this judgement. Instead, see paras 73 to 75, the ECJ gets to sign off on whether or not we can revoke. The test is not abuse, as proposed by

Steerpike

Six denials in six days about Theresa May’s Brexit vote

Faced with the prospect of overwhelming defeat, Theresa May has once again decided to kick the Brexit can down the road and delay the meaningful vote on her Brexit deal. Standing before the House of Commons, the Prime Minister told MPs that ‘it is clear that while there is broad support for many of the key aspects of the deal, on one issue – the Northern Ireland backstop – there remains widespread and deep concern.’ which is why she is shelving the vote. All of which rather confused Mr Steerpike. After all, nothing had really changed in the past week, and Mr S was sure he had heard multiple times

Steerpike

Watch: MP tells May: No PM is better than a bad PM

Not for the first time, Theresa May’s words on Brexit are coming back to haunt her. The PM once famously said that no deal is better than a bad deal. But in the Commons just now, Labour MP Peter Kyle had this to say to the PM: ‘Isn’t it true that no Prime Minister is better than a bad Prime Minister?’ Mr S thinks that Kyle has a point. But given that the Labour MP is no fan of the party’s leader, does his logic also apply to the prospect of a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn?

James Forsyth

Pulling the vote won’t be enough to save Theresa May’s Brexit deal

Few Prime Ministers can have come to the House in more humiliating circumstances than Theresa May did today. In her statement, May acknowledged that she was pulling the vote as she would have lost it by a significant margin if it had gone ahead. But in that odd way of hers, May then delivered her best defence of her deal as she was saying that she would head back to Brussels to try and change it. However, it is worth noting that May does not seem to be seeking a change to the withdrawal agreement itself. In response to a question from Iain Duncan Smith, she warned that reopening the

Isabel Hardman

Speaker Bercow says MPs should get a say in delaying Brexit vote

Speaker Bercow has told MPs that they do deserve a vote on the government’s plan to delay its Brexit deal vote. He told the Commons this afternoon that ‘any courteous, respectful and mature environment, allowing the House to have its say on the matter would be the right and obvious course to take’. We will find out more details on the procedural aspects of the government’s plan later when Andrea Leadsom gives a statement. Bercow’s statement shows why Labour were so keen to protect him as Speaker when his job was in peril over the bullying and harassment scandal. He was always likely to be an interventionist speaker over Brexit,

Steerpike

Watch: Beast of Bolsover takes Theresa May to task

Theresa May is having a hard time in the Commons on all sides but the most outspoken attack has come from a typical suspect. Step forward, Dennis Skinner. The Beast of Bolsover took the PM to task for delaying the Brexit vote, saying that by doing so she had handed over power to Brussels: ‘Mrs Thatcher had a word for it. What she has done today: F – R – I – T. She’s frit.’ Mr S is pleased to see that Skinner appears to have found some common ground with the Iron Lady…

Robert Peston

Theresa May must now admit she has failed. What happens next?

The Prime Minister had one job, after she took the greatest office in the land in July 2016 – which was to negotiate an orderly sensible Brexit. Today she will admit she has failed. Because rather than risk seeing an overwhelming majority of MPs vote down the Brexit plan she has meticulously and painstakingly agreed with the EU, she will today tell MPs she is pulling the vote. Two questions follow. What on earth can she say at 3.30pm today to persuade MPs and the nation that she has a strategy for a better Brexit outcome? And will MPs actually let her pull that vote? MPs of ALL parties –

Isabel Hardman

Eurosceptics threaten to block Government delay to Brexit vote 

Could we end up with Parliament voting on the Brexit deal tomorrow anyway? Eurosceptic Tory MPs have reacted with fury to the announcement that the government will delay the vote, with a number threatening to vote against the delay.  I understand that the European Research Group is currently discussing whether this is actually possible as an official position, but in the meantime MPs such as James Duddridge and Andrea Jenkyns have already made their threats public.  However, sources tell me that the advice given to the ERG has been that the Government might not even have to call a vote on delaying the vote, as it can merely avoid moving

Katy Balls

No.10 schedule emergency cabinet conference call

Cabinet ministers have been invited to an 11.30am emergency conference call, Coffee House understands. Not in the diary until the last hour, this has led to speculation that Theresa May could be about to delay the vote. As one Cabinet minister told me this morning: ‘I don’t expect the vote to go ahead this week.’ But is this just wishful thinking? It’s been clear for several days now that there has been an effort by ministers to get No.10 to delay the vote. Gavin Williamson has been seen as a key actor in all this – making the point that a large defeat could spell the end of the government.

Ross Clark

The ECJ Brexit ruling hands power back to Britain

The “People’s Vote” is celebrating the judgement by the European Court of Justice that Britain could unilaterally revoke Article 50 at any point up until 29 March next year and remain in the EU under existing terms. It destroys the argument that Michael Gove made last weekend: that reversing our decision to stay in the EU would lead to vastly inferior terms, the loss of Britain’s rebate and so on. And while the government still describes the judgement as hypothetical, it will also heap huge pressure on Theresa May if she loses tomorrow’s seemingly doomed vote on her withdrawal bill. Like it or not, she will have to fend off

Sunday

Charles Moore

The Mail may suffer yet for its Brexit volte-face

I may have spoken too soon when I predicted that the Daily Mail might not suffer from its Brexit volte-face. At the Daily Telegraph’s Christmas charity phone-in last Sunday, I was struck by how many donating readers mentioned the Mail’s desertion, and by reports of recruitment by the Telegraph of disconsolate Mail readers. There are rumours that the Mail’s new editor, Geordie Greig, has personally rung to plead with readers who are cancelling their subscriptions. Geordie is a charming man, but obviously he cannot speak to all the disgruntled tens of thousands. The Mail has chosen to switch from an insurgent to an establishment position just when that establishment is