James Forsyth

The backdrop to Theresa May’s Brexit speech is almost as interesting as the speech itself promises to be. First, there’s the government's very deliberate decision to make clear—via a Philip Hammond interview in the German press—that Britain will play hardball if it can’t secure a decent deal with the EU. Hammond made clear to Welt am Sonntag that if the UK can’t negotiate a reasonable new trading arrangement with the EU then it is prepared to slash tax and regulation to make its economy more competitive. This is a deliberate attempt to play on European worries about having some kind of Singapore West on its doorstep.

  Mark Lyall Grant, the Prime Minister’s national security adviser, is leaving. As I report in The Sun today, the 60 year-old Lyall Grant is to retire later this year. The hot favourite to replace Lyall Grant is Mark Sedwill, the permanent secretary at the Home Office. Theresa May knows Sedwill well from her time as Home Secretary, they worked together for three years. Having him in Downing Street will mean that she has foreign policy advice from an official with whom she has developed a strong working relationship with. ‘She likes people we know and trust’, says one senior figure involved in discussions about the move. Sedwill, a former Foreign Office man, is well qualified for the job.

The Guardian has a very significant story on its front page tomorrow. It has obtained notes of a meeting that Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, had with senior MEPs this week. These notes show that Barnier told them that he wanted a ‘special’ deal that would guarantee access for the EU firms and countries to the City of London’s financial markets. Interestingly, Barnier also said—according to The Guardian’s account—that ‘There will need to be work outside of the negotiation box … in order to avoid financial instability.” This suggests that Barnier shares Mark Carney’s view that there are financial stability risks for Europe if the EU cuts itself off from the City of London.

Curbs on executive pay, restrictions on foreign takeovers and workers on boards. Not Jeremy Corbyn’s plan for Britain, but ideas raised by Theresa May and put forward for discussion at her cabinet committee on the economy and industrial strategy. Not for 40 years have the Tories had a Prime Minister so firmly on the left of the party. May joined the Tories before Margaret Thatcher became leader and in many ways she represents a bridge back to the pre-Thatcher era. That is why comparisons between Britain’s two female prime ministers don’t reveal much — they come from very different traditions. Since Thatcherism took over the party, many Tories have looked to the United States for intellectual inspiration. But May is more of a continental-style Christian Democrat.

At PMQs today, Jeremy Corbyn didn’t have a disaster: there was no repeat of yesterday’s shambles. But he didn’t take full advantage of the opening he had. Yes, he went on the NHS—but he didn’t cause Theresa May as much trouble as he could have. There was no reference to the Times’ story this morning claiming that Downing Street is blaming Simon Stevens, the chief executive of the NHS. Nor did he manage to create any daylight between May and the Health Secretary over changes to the four-hour waiting target and Hunt’s warning that people turning up to A&E unnecessarily is a large part of the problem. This isn’t to deny that the NHS is a risk for the Tories.

The most memorable moment of Theresa May’s New Year TV interview was when Donald Trump’s quote about grabbing women by the pussy was read out to her. A clearly uncomfortable May replied that it was unacceptable language. Before quickly adding -- in an attempt to avoid angering the incoming President—that Trump himself had said that his language was unacceptable. One of the reasons that it was the most memorable moment was that May stuck to her usual script on both Brexit and domestic policy. She again made clear that control of immigration is paramount for her in the negotiations. But despite repeated attempts from Sky’s new political presenter Sophy Ridge, May wouldn’t confirm what this logically implies—that Britain is leaving the single market.

Theresa May has clearly learnt one lesson from David Cameron’s failed negotiation with the EU. As I write in The Sun this morning. she has realised that if she just asks for what cautious officials think she can get, then she won’t get enough to satisfy the voters—hence Sir Ivan Roger’s resignation as the UK representative to the EU. But an even bigger problem for Cameron’s renegotiation was that the other side never believed he would walk away from the deal. Cameron compounded this problem when he made clear that he wanted the whole thing done quickly, further reducing his negotiating leverage.

Few years will live as long in the memory as 2016. Historians will ponder the meaning and consequences of the past 12 months for decades to come. In the future, 180-odd years from now, some Zhou Enlai will remark that ‘it is too soon to say’ when asked about the significance of Brexit. The referendum result shocked Westminster. Michael Gove was so sure it would be Remain that he had retreated to bed on the evening of 23 June and only found out Leave had won when one of his aides telephoned in the early hours of the morning. Theresa May admits in her interview with us that she was ‘surprised’ by the result and had been expecting a Remain vote, based on both the polls and the mood in her own constituency.

PMQs began with the Labour MP Peter Dowd asking Theresa May if she didn’t wish that she had told Boris Johnson to FO rather than sending him to the FO. To which, May replied that he was a fine Foreign Secretary -- an FFS. At this point, it seemed that the session, the last PMQs before Christmas, might descend into festive silliness. But that didn’t happen. Jeremy Corbyn urged people to buy the Jo Cox charity single, a call May echoed, before moving onto social care. Over the next five questions, Corbyn turned in his best PMQs performance -- admittedly not a particularly high a bar to clear. Corbyn kept pressing May to abandon the corporation tax cut and spend the money on social care instead.

Want proof of how bad things are for Labour? Jeremy Corbyn and his disastrous leadership is not even its biggest problem anymore. I write in The Sun that Labour’s biggest problem, and it is potentially an existential one, is that its reaction to the Brexit vote is threatening to make it a political irrelevance More than 60 percent of Labour seats voted to leave the EU. In these constituencies, being the party that is trying to block Brexit would be electoral suicide. That’s why the Labour leadership felt compelled to accept the government’s amendment this week saying Theresa May should start the formal, two-year process for leaving the EU by the end of March. But Labour MPs in heavily Remain seats have different interests.

Few years will live as long in the memory as 2016. Historians will ponder the meaning and consequences of the past 12 months for decades to come. In the future, 180-odd years from now, some Zhou Enlai will remark that ‘it is too soon to say’ when asked about the significance of Brexit. The referendum result shocked Westminster. Michael Gove was so sure it would be Remain that he had retreated to bed on the evening of 23 June and only found out Leave had won when one of his aides telephoned in the early hours of the morning. Theresa May admits in her interview with us on p. 26 that she was ‘surprised’ by the result and had been expecting a Remain vote, based on both the polls and the mood in her own constituency.

461 MPs have just voted for Theresa May to invoke Article 50 by the end of March. The Tory amendment to Labour’s opposition day motion passed comfortably with only 89 MPs opposing it—and Ken Clarke the only Tory amongst them with 20-odd Labour Mps joining the SNP and the Lib Dems in voting against. Now, this vote is not binding and if the government loses its appeal to the Supreme Court will not be sufficient to satisfy the courts. But it does indicate that the government will be able to get an Article 50 bill through the Commons without too much trouble. It does make you wonder why Theresa May didn’t simply ask parliament to pass an Article 50 resolution before the Gina Miller case made it to the High Court.