Uk politics

Monday

James Forsyth

The mountain Theresa May has to climb to get her deal through

If Theresa May needed any reminder of what a mountain she has to climb to get her Brexit deal through, she got it in the House of Commons this afternoon. Any hope that getting the deal agreed with the EU 27 might give her momentum was dashed as MP after MP stood up to criticise the agreement. Not one MP supported it in the first hour of the session. In part, the wall of hostility came from the Speaker calling those known to be hostile to the deal. But what should most worry May was how critical Michael Fallon, the former defence secretary, was of her deal. If party loyalists, men of government types such as Fallon are having doubts about whether to support it, then it is very hard to see how any Tory rebellion can be kept down to a manageable level.

Robert Peston

Why the Treasury’s Brexit forecasts will be almost irrelevant

The publication by the Treasury of its forecasts of the economic impact of Theresa May's Brexit deal, versus no-deal and staying in the EU, has been keenly awaited. But it turns out that what we will read, probably on Wednesday, will be almost irrelevant. Because what the Treasury has modelled is not the deal actually struck on Sunday by Theresa May, but her Chequers plan. And, as you will be keenly aware, the rest of the EU has rejected her Chequers combination of the UK staying in the single market for goods and the dual-tariff customs territory the Facilitated Customs Arrangement.

Isabel Hardman

How Jeremy Corbyn could cause yet another Labour split on Brexit

Jeremy Corbyn has been clear for a while that Labour will vote against Theresa May's Brexit deal in the Commons. But it's worth keeping an eye on the reaction in his party to the development of a second line in the Labour position, which is that the party has a better plan for Brexit. Today the Labour leader urged the Prime Minister to 'prepare a Plan B', telling the Commons that 'there is a sensible deal that could win the support of this House based on a comprehensive customs union and strong single market deal that protects rights at work and environmental safeguards'.

Katy Balls

Watch: Theresa May apologises for queue-jumping comment

When Theresa May stood up at the CBI conference earlier this month and declared that under the new Brexit immigration system, EU nationals would no longer be able to 'jump the queue', she met a hostile reaction. The rhetoric led to fellow leaders, MPs and voters going on the offensive over the comments. Today Theresa May took the opportunity to apologise for that comment. Asked in the Chamber by the SNP’s Philippa Whitford whether she wished to apologise for insulting EU nationals like Whitford's husband, a German national and a doctor, who have contributed to society and made a home here, May said she should not have used that phrase: 'I should not have used that language in that speech'.

Isabel Hardman

My deal or chaos: May’s message to MPs as she faces the Commons

It only took a few lines of Theresa May's statement to the House of Commons on her Brexit deal before MPs started making dissenting noises all around her. The Prime Minister started by listing the ways in which the deal 'takes back control' for the British people, telling MPs that this included control of Britain's borders, ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, an end to 'vast annual payments we send to Brussels', protecting jobs through a new Free Trade Area, protecting the country's security and maintaining 'the integrity of our United Kingdom, meeting our commitments in Northern Ireland and delivering for the whole UK family, including our Overseas Territories'.

Theresa May

Full text: Theresa May defends her Brexit deal in the Commons

At yesterday’s Special European Council in Brussels, I reached a deal with the leaders of the other 27 EU Member States on a Withdrawal Agreement that will ensure our smooth and orderly departure on 29th March next year; and, tied to this Agreement, a Political Declaration on an ambitious future partnership that is in our national interest. Mr Speaker, this is the right deal for Britain because it delivers on the democratic decision of the British people. It takes back control of our borders. It ends the free movement of people in full once and for all, allowing the government to introduce a new skills-based immigration system. It takes back control of our laws.

James Kirkup

A Brexit deal between Tories and Labour is just common sense

Despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that I’ve spent most of my adult life writing and talking about politics and politicians, there are still things about politics that I just cannot, on a fundamental level, understand. Top of the list is tribalism, the “my party right or wrong” stuff that reduces public policy to the level of football chants. (Yes, football is another thing I don’t get. Surprising, I know.) Apart from anything else, taking the view that the people and ideas of the other side are automatically bad is surely utterly self-defeating? Politics is about persuading the greatest number of people to agree and support you, whether at elections or during day-to-day governing.

Theo Hobson

Does Theresa May’s Anglicanism explain her muddled Brexit?

Ever since ‘Brexit’ was first breathed, there have been comparisons with Henry VIII’s break with Rome. At first such comparisons seemed a bit far-fetched, for there are some big differences between the Catholic Church and the EU, and between Protestantism and zeal for Brexit. But now they seem uncannily apt. For it looks as if we are embarking on an almighty compromise, a monster muddle middle-way that will be decades in the making. It was about thirty years after Henry’s break that his daughter Elizabeth started stabilising things. Let’s hope we’re a bit quicker to realise that we must lay aside our purism and channel the Tudor spirit of compromise. Now, like then, tidy-minded ideologues on both sides scorn the very idea of a middle-muddle way.

Isabel Hardman

If May forgets to talk to her MPs, her Brexit deal is doomed

Theresa May is back in the Commons this afternoon updating MPs on her Brexit deal. She’s in the middle of a frenzy of campaigning that makes her efforts during the referendum itself look quite lacklustre (admittedly not hard, given how little effort the then Home Secretary put into that campaign), with phone-ins, newspaper interviews and a bid for a live TV debate on Brexit with Jeremy Corbyn. Tomorrow, May is also going to tour the UK to sell her deal to the public. The Prime Minister’s strategy is to talk over the heads of her warring party and straight to the public, in the hope that at least some of those MPs will heed the real opinions of their constituents and switch to voting for the deal in Parliament.

Katy Balls

What happens next? Five Brexit scenarios

Theresa May's deal has been approved by the EU27 but now the difficult part begins. No.10 must work out a way to get the EU withdrawal agreement through the Commons. Given that the number of Tory MPs who have said they won't support it is past the 80 mark (see the full list here), that looks no easy task. A vote is mooted for Tuesday 11th December. So, given that Plan A looks rather optimistic, what are the alternatives? No-one – not even those at No.10 – are entirely certain what would happen if the deal is voted down. However, here are the main scenarios to expect come the vote: MPs back May's deal on first vote At present, this seems an unlikely option. However, if No.

Robert Peston

Will Theresa May’s Brexit deal end up in the dustbin?

Because Theresa May's Brexit deal has been so long in the coming – almost two and a half years – and has been so comprehensively trailed and leaked, yesterday's formal ratification of the terms of our departure from the EU and the shape of our possible future relationship with the EU feels like the mother of all anti-climaxes. But cynicism and lethargy are to be resisted: that ratification really matters. Because because - at last we have THE DEAL. Until yesterday, everything about Brexit was presumption, speculation, rumour and hypothesis. Finally we know what Brexit means to a Prime Minister who had no other job but to find out what it means.

Sunday

Jacob Rees-Mogg

Jacob Rees-Mogg: Changing strategy means changing leader

‘Away with the cant of “measures not men”! — the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along. No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are everything, measures comparatively nothing.’ George Canning said this in 1801 and recent events remind us that he was right. In the end the only way to change the policy is to change the person, as the individual determines the direction and is rarely willing to try a different route. As I have known this quotation for decades, it was naïve of me to expect the Prime Minister to change her policy. It is not how it works: the wrong policy means the wrong person.

Steerpike

Knighted Tory MP: I still won’t back May’s deal

Oh dear. Over the weekend No.10 came under much criticism after it emerged that John Hayes had been awarded an impromptu knighthood. Unkind souls were quick to suggest that the motivation for giving the long time Tory Eurosceptic the honour was less than pure. With the crunch Brexit deal vote coming up the track, Tory Brexiteers claimed this was part of a cynical attempt by Downing Street to win a vote in favour of May's deal. Alas, it seems that were these No.10's intentions, their efforts will go unrewarded. Hayes tells the Mail on Sunday that he has no plans to vote for May's deal: ‘As I’ve made very clear before my honour, I cannot support the deal as it now stands.’ So much for the chumocracy...

Saturday

James Forsyth

Is the backstop vulnerable to challenge under human rights law?

The most contentious part of Theresa May’s Brexit deal are the Northern Ireland specific provisions of the backstop. These would see various EU rules and regulations apply in Northern Ireland even after the UK has left the EU. If they came into force, they would create—in some areas—a kind of regulatory border in the Irish Sea. But, as I say in The Sun this morning, these provisions might be illegal under European Human Rights law. A case in 1999 brought against the UK government, the Matthews case, at the European Court of Human Rights established that people have a right to vote in elections to the parliaments that set their laws.

Steerpike

Revealed: Philip Hammond’s speech at DUP conference – Boris, Rees-Mogg and the backstop

With the DUP currently refusing to vote with the Tories following grievances over the proposed Irish backstop, Theresa May's party is having to try out life as a minority government. Piling on the pressure, DUP leader Arlene Foster has told the BBC that her party would have to revisit its confidence and supply deal with the Tories permanently if May's Brexit deal passes through Parliament. So, spare a thought for Philip Hammond. Spreadsheet Phil was given the task of being sent to DUP conference to charm attendees on behalf of the government. Mr S's mole in the room reports that the Chancellor managed to crack a few jokes at the expense of his Tory colleagues. On recent cabinet resignations: 'I look around the room and I see some people I know. I see a lot of new faces.

Charles Moore

Will May’s Brexit deal stop us making jokes about Juncker?

Article 129 (3) of the withdrawal agreement provides that ‘the United Kingdom shall refrain, during the transition period, from any action or initiative which is likely to be prejudicial to the Union’s interests, in particular in the framework of any international organisation, agency, conference or forum of which the United Kingdom is a party in its own right.’ What does that mean? That we are not free at the UN Security Council to oppose any item of EU foreign policy? That we cannot cut our rate of VAT? That we must not make jokes about Jean-Claude Juncker? Needless to say, there is no reciprocal obligation on the EU to do nothing prejudicial to the interests of the United Kingdom.

Friday

Andrew Willshire

Supporters of a second referendum should be careful what they wish for

The campaign for a second referendum continues to grow. On the Conservative side, nearly a dozen Tory MPs now support a 'People's Vote’ and if Theresa May's deal gets voted down, this number is likely to rise further. Among Labour MPs, support is even greater; if it wasn't for Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, it seems safe to say that a second vote would almost certainly be Labour party policy by now, with the SNP and the Lib Dems also on board with the idea. But a question remains: have those calling for a second vote really thought about the possible consequences? It is clear that many of those campaigning for another referendum have a simple objective: to block Brexit. But this could easily end up backfiring. Take the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

Steerpike

Diane Abbott’s warning to second referendum supporters

Diane Abbott has a stark warning for those clamouring for a second referendum: be careful what you wish for. The Labour MP's warning won't go down well with those from the 'People's Vote' campaign, who desperately need the support of the Labour party if their wish is to come true. On Nick Robinson's podcast, Abbott was asked what would happen if another vote took place. Here's what she said: 'My view is that if we had a second referendum tomorrow, Leave would win again. And not only would Leave win again, but Leave voters would say: what didn't you understand about Leave the first time?' Mr S thinks Abbott is talking sense...

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May dodges Brexit deal question

Theresa May is back on the radio flogging her Brexit deal to a sceptical public. Unsurprisingly, few of those who phoned in to BBC 5 Live seemed impressed by what the Prime Minister had to offer. One listener asked the PM to tell him, without any 'political waffle', whether her deal is better than staying in the EU. But May's bid to do just that didn't exactly work out to plan. At the end of May's minute-long answer, the host Emma Barnett asked for the caller's verdict: EB: 'Michael, did the PM answer your question?' Caller: 'No' Emma Barnett ended the interview by asking May how she and Philip would celebrate if the deal got through Parliament. The PM seemed momentarily stumped by the question before the Maybot kicked in with an answer: TM: 'If...well...er...I will...

Katy Balls

Dominic Raab is just saying what a lot of Leave MPs are thinking

After resigning as Brexit Secretary over Theresa May’s proposed deal, Dominic Raab has restyled himself as one of the more loyal of the Brexiteer rebels. He used an appearance on the Andrew Marr show over the weekend to say that although he would note vote for the deal as it currently stands, he still backed Theresa May as Prime Minister and would vote for her in any confidence vote. This morning he is upped the ante, however, with an interview on the Today programme. Discussing both the withdrawal agreement and the future framework (which was set out on Thursday), Raab was frank in his assessment. The Tory Brexiteer said he would prefer EU membership to what’s currently on the table.