Cindy Yu

In early results on Sunday evening, the Brexit Party’s dominance in the North East of England, the first region to be counted, could be a sign of things to come. Taking 39 per cent of the vote share, Nigel Farage’s party has secured two MEPs out of the three available in the region, with Labour taking the third. This bodes well for the Brexit party at the beginning of a night of counting, and Labour should be very worried by these early results. Before tonight, Labour had two MEPs in the North East. In tonight’s results, Labour's vote share has fallen by 11 per centage points. As predicted, Conservative vote share has fallen drastically across the UK – they were beaten by the Greens in the West Midlands (where the Brexit Party took three seats).

Labour’s constructive ambiguity on Brexit has served it well since the 2017 election. But as the country votes in European elections this week, has the party miscalculated in being too ambiguous? Nick Cohen writes in this week’s cover article that Labour should have positioned itself as the party of Remain, and now it faces being picked off by the Lib Dems on one side, and the Brexit Party on the other. On the podcast, Sienna Rodgers and Nick discuss Labour's fate: And rather unlikely support for Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign comes in this week’s issue. Self-professed Remainiac Matthew Parris says that whoever is the next leader will have to tell the country that Brexit must be paused, and Boris is the best man for the job.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Is that man Boris? And if it is, what still stands in his way? In this week's cover article, James Forsyth writes that Boris is the only one who can save the Tories from Jeremy Corbyn and, more pressingly, Nigel Farage (he's backed up by the latest polling from Friday). But the biggest thing standing in his way is himself. In the aftermath of the 2016 referendum, Boris Johnson found himself unorganised, undisciplined, and crushed by public opinion, unable to recover from the vitriol that went his way following the Leave result, and panicked by Michael Gove's last minute backstabbing. But the 2019 Boris Johnson is different, James argues. He's leaner, has better hair - and looks to have absorbed the lessons from his last go at leadership.

As the two main parties reel from their local election performances today, are we at the beginning of a golden age for smaller parties? James Forsyth evaluates the chances of the Brexit party - Nigel Farage's new electoral outfit - in this week's cover piece. The conclusion isn't pretty for the Conservative party: the Brexit party is slicker than Ukip ever was, and two out of five Tory councillors are considering voting for them in the upcoming European elections. The party has also managed to perform better than Change UK, who seemed to have peaked at their launch a few months ago, demonstrating - James argues - the sheer anger that is out there in the constituencies with the way Brexit is going. On the podcast, Katy Balls talks to James and Matthew Goodwin, an expert on polling and Ukip.

This week, Theresa May finally promised to leave - but only after her Brexit deal passes. Anticipation of her departure has already triggered a leadership race within the Conservative party - who will take after her, and what does Brexit and the country look like after May leaves? On the podcast, Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan. Despite Brexit, the government's domestic agenda tries to rumble on. A long-planned and long-delayed plan to use technology to place age restrictions on watching pornography is due to come in imminently.

Last night, the EU27 unanimously rejected Theresa May's request for a June Brexit extension and told her 22 May at the latest - or 12 April if she couldn't pass her deal). This pushes the cliff edge back by just a little, and makes nothing easier for her. If her deal doesn't pass, she would have to choose a no deal, or a long extension and agree to hold European parliament elections. But that's assuming that she will still be in control of the process at that point. Crucially, the extension gives time for MPs to take control of Brexit in the next three weeks. If her deal is rejected (as still looks likely) then parliament will have plenty opportunity to state its terms: for example, the Customs Union that Labour seeks.

In Salvador Dalí's Persistence of Memory, several clocks are melting away in a surreal desert scene where a distorted horse-like creature fades into the sand, below a ledge where a pocket watch crawls with ants. The bizarre painting is rather reminds one of the surrealism of the Brexit process, especially after this week. The government has gone into full meltdown mode - it lost yet again on May's Brexit deal (though this time by a smaller margin, only by 149 MPs); ended up whipping against itself on a motion rejecting no deal, where 13 government ministers defied the whip; and just about wrested control of Brexit from the Commons on a vote on Thursday night. Meanwhile, we are two weeks away from 29 March.

As The Spectator's podcast editor, I'm all for spending more money on podcasts. There are now six million adults in the UK who listen to podcasts, every week. If growth continues on that path, podcast listenership will be on par with total Radio 4 listenership in just another five years. With a trajectory like this, it's no wonder that everyone wants in on the game. Trade secretary Liam Fox is the latest to join the club. But it looks like he's been too enthusiastic. The Department for International Trade podcast series - 'Local to Global' - is funded by the taxpayer and has cost over £100,000 to produce and promote. It has received fewer than 9,000 listens (that's in total, not per episode).

It was Harold Wilson who said that a week is a long time in politics. How true that is for the times we are living in now. This time last week, The Spectator spoke to Gavin Shuker MP, the ringleader of the newly-formed Independent Group, about the plotting that happened behind the scenes and the ambitions of the independent MPs for their new project (you can listen to it here). A few days after recording, Jeremy Corbyn finally - though reluctantly - embraced a second referendum, to prevent more Labour MPs jumping ship. On the same day, Theresa May was forced into a new Brexit position of her own - to allow MPs a vote on extending Article 50. Knowing parliamentary arithmetic as we do, this is essentially a green light to extend Article 50 if the next meaningful vote does not pass.

When The Spectator brought together Conservative Party MPs and think tank wonks at Conservative Party Conference earlier this year, kindly sponsored by Barclays, the discussion over how to stimulate regional growth had one key conclusion. The old divide of North vs. South is now over; with the success stories of regional cities like Leeds and Manchester, as centres of innovation, business, and academia, the new economic and cultural divide in the UK is now cities vs. towns. So what does this divide look like, and what are the solutions for it? In a roundtable lunch recently, Barclays and The Spectator brought together Labour MPs to see how the problem might be solved from a different political persuasion.