Uk politics

Monday

Steerpike

Watch: Beast of Bolsover takes Theresa May to task

From our UK edition

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?

From our UK edition

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 – including her own – are queuing up to tell me this morning that they will not give up their democratic right to formally vote down her deal without a fight.

Isabel Hardman

Eurosceptics threaten to block Government delay to Brexit vote 

From our UK edition

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 the continuation of the debate.

Katy Balls

No.10 schedule emergency cabinet conference call

From our UK edition

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. Other ministers agree and have also put pressure on May – in this vein, several Sunday newspapers reported that the vote could be called off imminently. Yet, despite this, No.

Ross Clark

The ECJ Brexit ruling hands power back to Britain

From our UK edition

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 a reinvigorated campaign for a second referendum. But hang on a minute, is the ruling really only good news for Remainers?

Sunday

Charles Moore

The Mail may suffer yet for its Brexit volte-face

From our UK edition

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 more discredited than at any time since the 1930s.

Saturday

Ross Clark

The ‘People’s Vote’ campaign’s latest struggle with the truth

From our UK edition

Given how Remainers have lost no opportunity to accuse the official Leave campaign of telling porkies about how much money we send to the EU – £350 million per week according to Vote Leave but closer to a net £250 million once the UK rebate is taken into account – one might imagine that the 'People’s Vote' campaign would take extra special care over statements relating to financial contributions to the EU. But it seems not. It has been caught out doctoring a report written by an outside expert, leading to inaccurate claims about how EFTA members’ contributions to the EU are spent. Yesterday, 'People’s Vote' published a report entitled ‘Why Norway Plus Won’t Work’, with a foreword by David Miliband and Jo Johnson.

Steerpike

Watch: Jenni Russell schools Alastair Campbell on Remainer arrogance

From our UK edition

When it comes to columnists who lean towards Remain, few are more vocal in their criticism of Brexit than Times columnist Jenni Russell. So, when Russell has to step in to warn arch-Remainer Alastair Campbell that he has gone too far, you know something has gone seriously wrong. This was the case on Newsnight on Friday evening. Russell used her appearance on the Brexit panel to explain why she had now gone cold on the idea of a second referendum: there has not been a big shift in public opinion and a no deal Brexit could win: 'The point is that absolutely no effort so far has gone into saying to people anything other than ‘you are mistaken, your lives are rubbish and they are going to be even worse if we leave.

James Forsyth

Will the government find a way to avoid Tuesday’s vote?

From our UK edition

Key Cabinet Ministers are urging Theresa May to avoid a vote on her Brexit deal on Tuesday night. I report in The Sun this morning that they fear that if it goes ahead, the government will lose by a margin so large that it could bring the whole thing crashing down. One Secretary of State tells me that it would be ‘group suicide’ to press ahead with the vote. Number 10 say that no decision on whether to find a way to avoid the vote has been taken yet; senior figures there say that decision will not be taken until Monday. But they do admit that they are making little headway in trying to quell this rebellion. One Cabinet Minister tells me that they are heading for a three-figure defeat.

Katy Balls

Women with Balls podcast: the Liz Truss edition

From our UK edition

When Liz Truss took to the stage at the Spectator's Parliamentarian of the Year awards, she used her speech to send up her Cabinet colleagues and boss – cracking jokes about the indefinite length of the backstop, Karen Bradley's loose grasp of history and – in a dig at her own department – called for a ban on Treasury forecasts. So, given Truss's straight-talking attitude, I'm delighted to have the Chief Secretary to the Treasury as my guest on the latest episode of Women with Balls: In the interview, Truss talks about the regrets of her youth ( ...

Charles Moore

Could Dominic Grieve’s Brexit amendment launch a new party?

From our UK edition

Inside the Dominic Grieve amendment carried on Tuesday is the embryo of a new political party. Any parliamentary majority for what Sir Oliver Letwin, who voted for the amendment, calls ‘something real’ (‘Norway plus’) if Mrs May’s deal falls would depend on the support of a good many Labour MPs. After three months’ work, the organisers believe they have got 75 such on board, led by Chuka Umunna. These are anti-Brexit, chiefly Blairite Labour MPs who cannot bear Jeremy Corbyn. If their number held up (a big ‘if’), the organisers calculate, the House could carry ‘Norway plus’, with the government and most Conservative backbenchers supporting, even if the ‘hard’ Brexiteers opposed. Labour would be split.

John Connolly

The full list: MPs voting for and against May’s Brexit deal

From our UK edition

It’s the question that’s on everyone’s lips this week in Westminster: now that the Brexit negotiations have been finalised by the EU, will Theresa May be able to get her withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons? So far, the numbers are not in her favour. Labour have confirmed they will whip against her deal, as have the SNP and other opposition parties. Meanwhile the DUP have said they will vote against the proposal – rather than just abstain. That means even if Theresa May could count on complete party loyalty in the upcoming meaningful vote, she would still be four votes short of the 320 needed for a majority. Unfortunately for her, there are already plenty of MPs on her side unhappy with the deal and willing to rebel.

Friday

Anthony Masters

Did Vote Leave’s overspending win the referendum for Brexit?

From our UK edition

An Oxford professor's claim that it was “very likely” that  overspending by Vote Leave swung the referendum for Brexit has taken off like wildfire. Professor Philip Howard's analysis made the front page of yesterday's Independent under the headline: 'Illegal Facebook spending 'won 2016 vote for Leave''. So do the numbers behind the headline add up? Prof Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, calculated that: Around 80 million Facebook users saw the Vote Leave campaign ads on social media during the period of excess spending; 10 per cent of users clicked through; 10 per cent of those users switched their vote as a result, giving over 800,000 switched voters. This argument falls at each hurdle.

Isabel Hardman

Could Labour drop its plan for a no confidence vote?

From our UK edition

The working assumption in Westminster at the moment is that Theresa May will lose Tuesday’s meaningful vote on her Brexit deal, and then the Labour Party will table a motion of no confidence in the government. The Tory whips certainly seem as concerned about that no confidence vote as they are about the Brexit vote, given they are resigned to losing one but have a good chance of winning the other. But I’m not sure that this is the case any more. The public language from the Opposition has changed in recent days to suggest that there will not be a separate vote after all - or at least not one tabled by the Labour Party.

James Kirkup

Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit position reveals his greatest secret: he’s a Blairite

From our UK edition

Anyone observing or participating in the continuing collective trauma of Britain’s Brexit debate should pay more attention to Jeremy Corbyn and some of the most important — and to some people, surprising — things he has done as Labour leader. Here’s a short list: 1. Promised big handouts for the middle class. Mr Corbyn ran his 2017 general election campaign offering huge middle class subsidies from the state. Scrapping tuition fees and offering “free” universal higher education would be a gift to the better-off, whose kids still dominate university entry. (Just look at Scotland.) And the gift would be funded by non-graduate workers’ taxes. 2.

Melanie McDonagh

The problem with a ‘People’s Vote’

From our UK edition

Surprise! The Economist has come out in favour of a new referendum on Brexit, joining Sadiq Khan, Tony Blair and possibly the entire cast of Strictly in calling for a People’s Vote. It observes sagely: “no one can claim to intuit what the people want. The only way to know is to ask them”. And of the PM’s peculiar tour of the nation to flog her plan (why?), it declares that it is an exercise in “pantomime” democracy:“May is right that MPs should take into account what the public think. So should she: not by guessing, but by calling on them to vote”. But on what?

Isabel Hardman

Why politicians should fear Project Fear

From our UK edition

‘Project Fear’ didn’t work out in the 2016 Brexit referendum, with voters turning against the ‘experts’ maligned by Michael Gove and other Leave campaigners. So it’s strange to see the Conservatives reigniting it again in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, warning of six months of disruption at Dover and other ports in the event of no deal. There’s no evidence that this squeeze message is really going to work on Tory MPs and whittle down the scale of the expected defeat next week. The return of Project Fear is also a reminder of the danger of a second referendum for those who hope that it might lead to Britain voting to Remain after all.

Anthony Browne

Why the Norway model wouldn’t work for Britain

From our UK edition

In the corridors of Westminster and the salons of some remainers, there is a lot of excited chatter about the “Norway option”. This would involve being a member of the EEA and single market, but not of the EU. Depending on who is pushing, Norway is presented as either a temporary or permanent alternative to Theresa May's troubled deal. But there are problems with this quick fix. The well discussed issue that being in the EEA doesn’t end freedom of movement is one; another is the fact that the Norway option doesn't end EU budget contributions. But more fundamentally, few appreciate just how a regime that (sort of) suits Norway is completely unsuitable for the UK.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Stephen Lloyd’s baffling decision to resign the Lib Dem whip

From our UK edition

Brexit has left the three main parties that stand in England in an existential mess, split not just over the fundamental question of Leave vs Remain, but also over how to approach the deal that Theresa May has brought back from Europe. One of the odder splits tore open today, with Eastbourne MP Stephen Lloyd announcing he was resigning the Liberal Democrat whip so that he could back the government next week.

Katy Balls

Blair makes his pitch for a second referendum: Remain – or hard Brexit

From our UK edition

Tony Blair has spent his lunch attempting to charm the Parliamentary Press Gallery. The former prime minister used his appearance before hacks to lay out his pitch for a second referendum. The ardent Remainer claimed that MPs were likely to come round to the idea of a second Brexit vote in the coming weeks as they would work out that there is no Parliamentary majority for any form of Brexit at present. He said that Theresa May's deal was the worst of both worlds as it wasn't properly leaving. As a result, Blair argued that the options on the ballot paper in a second vote should simply be 'Remain' and a 'hard Brexit' – though given that the EU has said that May's deal is the only deal, that implies Blair is suggesting no deal.