Uk politics

Wednesday

Charles Moore

When the BBC’s ‘Reality Check’ reporter met his match

The BBC’s ‘Reality Check’ device is a piece of hubris, which this week met its nemesis. It effectively says: ‘We report untrustworthy politicians who disagree with one another. You, the stupid viewer/listener, obviously cannot be expected to work out where the truth lies. Our expert correspondents will tell you.’ The main man who does this on Brexit is called Chris Morris. His version of ‘reality’ is strongly pro-Remain. If you read his online summary of the withdrawal agreement, for example, he says that ‘the Brexit process has caused an enormous amount of anxiety and uncertainty’ in relation to immigration. That is a defensible proposition, but one depending on a point

James Forsyth

Theresa May fails to calm her Brexit critics at PMQs

Jeremy Corbyn is not a forensic Commons performer. He is uncomfortable adjusting his questions to take into account Theresa May’s responses. This limits his ability to pin May down. Today, he asked a question on a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea. May emphasised that there wouldn’t be a customs border there. But Corbyn didn’t then pursue what kind of regulatory border there would be. The result was that May sustained no damage during their exchanges.  Once again, the lack of support in the chamber for May’s deal was striking. There were a couple of supportive questions from the Tory benches, but more hostile ones. The most difficult

Katy Balls

Did Amber Rudd’s Today interview actually help No. 10?

In her first interview since returning to the cabinet, Amber Rudd has set the cat among the pigeons. Speaking on the Today programme this morning, the new Work and Pensions Secretary appeared to go off script as she talked about the prospect of a ‘no deal’ Brexit. The former Remain campaigner said that Parliament ‘will stop No Deal’ if the deal is voted down as there ‘isn’t a majority in the House of Commons to allow that to take place’. ‘I don’t think we are looking at another referendum. I think what will happen is that people will take a careful look over the abyss and despite what people say the

Nick Cohen

How the ‘people’s vote’ campaign gained momentum

A year ago, campaigners for a ‘people’s vote’ seemed an eccentric bunch of no hopers and bad losers. Mocked as ‘remoaners’, their arguments barely covered by the media, history had left them behind. As the leave campaigns’ central claim that we could have the benefits of EU membership while leaving the EU is revealed for the absurdity it always was, the ‘people’s vote’ has gathered mass support and moved from the fringes to the mainstream with heartening speed. One mark of the campaign’s success is that even its critics acknowledge that a ‘peoples vote’ is a viable solution to the constitutional, economic and diplomatic crisis that engulfs us. A second is

Katy Balls

Tories try out life as a minority government

MPs and ministers who had settled down in Parliament on Tuesday evening for a late night of votes on the finance bill were given an early reprieve – all votes were off. However, rather than an early Christmas present from No.10, the shelving of votes on the finance bill was down to a reason out of Theresa May’s control: no working majority. With the DUP abstaining for a second day over grievances with the EU withdrawal text, the government decided to concede all amendments to the bill – including one from the SNP. It’s not clear they would have lost on every single amendment but after the antics of Monday

Tuesday

Steerpike

Watch: Clive Lewis misbehaves in the Commons

Clive Lewis is no stranger to controversy. The Labour MP was forced to apologise last year after he was caught on camera telling someone to ‘get on your knees b****’. Now, Lewis has surpassed himself, by appearing to pretend to shoot himself while sitting on the Labour frontbench in the House of Commons. The Corbynista MP vented his frustration after his party colleague Anneliese Dodds was interrupted by a Tory MP making an intervention during a debate. Mr S wonders whether another Clive Lewis apology might be on the cards…

Steerpike

Brexiteer plot flops: Anatomy of a failed coup

Brexiteers are trying to put on a brave face over the lack of 48 letters needed to trigger a confidence vote in the Prime Minister. Having begun the week certain that they would trigger a vote, they now claim they are giving May time to reconsider and they may move in December. So, what’s the truth – a kind gesture or a failed plot? In order to let readers decide for themselves what went wrong, Mr S has gathered a timeline of events: Thursday, 15th November Theresa May’s deal is approved by Cabinet – minus a resignation or two. Henry Smith MP posts a photo of his no confidence letter

Matthew Lynn

Has Mark Carney just ended the campaign for a ‘People’s Vote’? | 20 November 2018

The headlines will inevitably write themselves. The Bank of England backs Theresa May. The Prime Minister’s beleaguered and precarious deal is the best of all the options available and the economy may well get through the next few months largely unscathed. Following the testimony this morning from the Bank’s governor Mark Carney, most people will pick up on the support he has given to the Prime Minister and his reassurance that the economy will survive our departure. And yet there were two more significant points that emerged from his testimony. The Bank is finally willing to concede that leaving without a deal wouldn’t be so bad after all. And just

Andrew Montford

The threat to the environment that the green lobby tries to ignore

It’s not like the green blob to keep quiet when there’s a threat to the environment in the offing. Even the smallest hint of a problem is usually enough to work a tree-hugger into a frenzy. So it’s worth taking a look at their decision to keep shtum over the recent appearance of what may be one of the greatest threats to the natural world we have seen. Over the last few weeks, scientists and campaigners alike have been turning their attention to the question of how land can be used to tackle global warming. Their interest was prompted by the appearance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) special

Steerpike

Watch: Jacob Rees-Mogg rebukes reporter over Brexit ‘coup’

The Brexit bunch’s bid to oust Theresa May has fallen rather flat, at least for the time being. Having failed to muster enough letters to force a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, the European Research Group now appears to be desperately backtracking. Jacob Rees-Mogg, who enjoyed the limelight at an impromptu press conference outside Parliament last week when a vote appeared to be imminent, seemed somewhat more shy this morning when he was asked about the attempt to bring down the PM – rebuking a reporter for calling it a ‘coup’: ‘Coup is entirely the wrong word. Indeed it is a rather silly word. This overegged language

Steerpike

Labour snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Oh dear. Theresa May’s confidence and supply agreement with the DUP is on very thin ice – if not already dead – after the party’s MPs abstained on a range of amendments to the finance bill and even voted en masse for a Labour amendment. This is in breach of the party’s deal with the Conservatives – the row has been triggered by May’s Brexit deal. However, it’s not just May who has been caused a headache by last night’s Commons antics. The DUP voted for a Labour amendment to the finance bill calling on the Treasury to produce impact assessments of the budget on inequality and child poverty. Yet

Monday

Freddie Sayers

Theresa May’s deal would win a second referendum. Here’s why

One important piece of information missing during these dramatic Brexit manoeuvres is what the voters actually want. Rory Stewart, one of the only ministers doing a decent job of selling the Prime Minister’s plan, speculated that ‘80 per cent of the British public support this deal’ and was promptly forced to apologise. Meanwhile opponents of the deal point to polls taken since the details were revealed suggesting that as few as 19 per cent of the public support it. So what is the truth? I think Theresa May’s deal is fundamentally much more in line with public opinion than polls suggest and that it will become more evidently so over time. It

Johannes de Jong

Why Theresa May’s Brexit deal is bad news for Europeans

Theresa May’s current Brexit deal will tie the UK more closely to Brussels than if it had stayed in the EU. The agreement, which is supposed to take back control and restore British sovereignty, will actually have the opposite effect. This is bad news for Britain – and bad news, too, for Europeans like myself who are desperate to see the EU reformed for the better. Jo Johnson was right to claim, when he resigned as a minister, that the choice now facing the UK is between ‘vassalage’ and ‘chaos’. On both sides of the debate, among Brexit supporters and those who want Britain to remain in the EU, the

Katy Balls

DUP abstain on finance bill – what it means

Although Theresa May looks set to avoid a confidence vote for the time being, tonight’s Finance Bill votes could serve to undermine her authority further. Government whips have spent the day frantically trying to persuade swing MPs to vote with the government against a series of amendments. Those efforts have been rather fruitless in some respects – with the government already forced to concede on the Jo Johnson backed amendment calling for the Treasury to publish a comparison of the impact of the Brexit deal with the impact of Britain’s existing terms with the EU. Adding to May’s woes is the fact the DUP have abstained on most of the votes.

Isabel Hardman

No-confidence threat against May recedes – for a few days

Is Theresa May about to face a vote of no confidence in her leadership? The Prime Minister is acting as though nothing has changed, to coin a phrase, focusing on selling her Brexit plan to business leaders at the CBI, rather than getting too bogged down with the internal problems with her party. But those trying to organise the move against her had been making noises all day that they may have the requisite number of letters calling for such a vote by this evening. This doesn’t look like it’s going to be the case. Indeed, today a number of Brexiteers including Owen Paterson and Iain Duncan Smith have been

Isabel Hardman

Amber Rudd admits Universal Credit is in trouble

Amber Rudd left the Home Office over the Windrush scandal and has joined the Work and Pensions department just as its flagship benefits reform is under fire from all angles. The new Secretary of State spent most of her first session at the dispatch box this afternoon answering questions on Universal Credit – and she had arrived determined to strike a rather different tone from her predecessor. Esther McVey, who resigned from the role last week, had garnered a reputation for being rather hardline when dealing with criticisms of the benefit roll-out, while also managing to give far more away about some of its problems than Number 10 would have

Steerpike

May’s Brexit deal: 40 rebuttals to Downing Street’s 40 rebuttals

Is a deal better than no deal? After Mr S attempted to answer that question over the weekend by publishing 40 horrors lurking in the small print of Theresa May’s Brexit deal, No. 10 got in touch with 40 rebuttals to Steerpike’s 40 horrors. Still with us? Well, episode three of this series is finally here. Mr S thanks 10 Downing Street for conceding many of the 40 points on the Withdrawal Agreement, and for engaging in all of them. In the spirit of friendly discussion, here are all 40 of Steerpike’s responses. ———————————————————————————– First, a note on ambiguity: In its rebuttals, No10 accepts ambiguity over how the document might

Ross Clark

Why do we care what the CBI thinks about May’s Brexit deal?

Big UK business is often guilty of short-termism and the CBI’s response to Theresa May’s draft withdrawal proposal is no exception. Large companies are backing May’s appalling deal with the EU because they are preoccupied with ensuring that next year’s results are no worse than the guidance they have given markets. The opportunities which could arise from a proper Brexit, in which Britain is allowed to do its own trade deals, set its own regulations and lower taxes and other barriers in order to suck in overseas investment, are too far over their horizon for them to see. How often have you heard the words drip from well-fed FTSE 100

Sunday

Katy Balls

Tory Brexiteers divided over how to kill off May’s deal

Will Theresa May face a vote of no confidence? Graham Brady has been touring the studios over the weekend making it clear that the full 48 letters required to trigger such a vote are yet to be received. That’s not to say it won’t happen in the near future – there’s plenty that could happen in the next week to irk MPs further – though European Research Group members seem a little down-hearted by the slow pace to proceedings. The problem is Tory Brexiteers are not united when it comes to a response to May’s EU withdrawal agreement. There are a small number of Tory Leave MPs who actually support

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows roundup: Theresa May’s Brexit warning

Theresa May – Brexit will be harder without me The Prime Minister joined Sophy Ridge this morning to discuss the result of the government’s draft withdrawal agreement with the European Union, which was released on Wednesday. The controversial 585 page document has already seen several resignations, with other ministers thought to be considering their positions. There has also been considerable discontent on the Conservative backbenches, with the influential European Research Group now calling for a vote of no confidence in May’s leadership. In response, May told Ridge that her critics needed to get their priorities straight: TM: A change of leadership at this point isn’t going to make the negotiations