Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Thursday

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 28 February 2019

Jeremy Corbyn never ceases to attack Mrs May for trying to run down the clock. She has certainly done that, but she is also quite capable of running up the clock. This she is now doing with her threat of an extension of Article 50. She is like the mouse in the nursery rhyme, with its order reversed. As has been true at least since her disastrous general election of 2017, she will do absolutely anything to avoid a clean break with the EU and keep us in some approximation to the Customs Union. Hickory, dickory, dock: that’s the policy. One could smell a rat — or rather, that mouse

Henry Newman

No deal, no problem? I’m not so sure

Tony Abbott claims in The Spectator this week that in the event of a no-deal Brexit the “difficulties would quickly pass”. Perhaps. I should start by saying that I am relatively sanguine about the medium-term economic effects of leaving without an agreement. But I think it is pretty absurd to suggest that “no deal would be no problem”.  The most immediate political issue would be a certain collapse of the current Government. I know that these days they are no strangers to political chaos down under and Aussie prime ministers come and go with frightening speed, but how could you make a success of Brexit with no majority for the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

George Eustice resigns – will more Leave-voting ministers follow?

When the week began, there was speculation that a group of ministers would resign over Theresa May’s Brexit stance. The Prime Minister had been warned that up to 22 members of government could quit unless she promised the chance for MPs to extend Article 50 if no deal looks likely. In the end, May blinked and paved the way for such a vote if her deal is rejected in two weeks’ time. However, that decision has led to a government resignation that few were expecting. This afternoon George Eustice resigned as Defra minister over May’s promise to allow MPs a vote on delaying Brexit if her deal is rejected. In

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The Daily Mail’s Brexit volte face has left a hole in British politics

Generally, journalists shouldn’t talk shop about the press in mixed company. But an exception should be made, I reckon, for the Daily Mail, which has had for so long a unique place in national life as a political player in its own right. It gave a voice to a tribe: the socially conservative and it was, most obviously, the house journal and campaigning expression of Brexit: the full-fat version. All that changed when Geordie Greig, an urbane, likeable and intelligent Etonian, replaced Paul Dacre last year as editor, but it’s only now that the changes are really working through. This week, the Mail’s former parliamentary sketch writer, Quentin Letts surfaced

Steerpike Steerpike

David Lammy’s strange spat with Comic Relief

David Lammy has taken a break from talking about Brexit – to take a pop at Comic Relief. In a strange turn of events, the Labour MP, investigative journalist Stacey Dooley, and Comic Relief have become embroiled in an online spat this morning. The row began when Lammy complained about a film Dooley was making with Comic Relief in Uganda, which Lammy suggested perpetuated stereotypes of Africa, arguing ‘The world does not need any more white saviours.’ Dooley duly responded that if Lammy was so worried about a white woman raising awareness, perhaps he could go over there instead. https://twitter.com/StaceyDooley/status/1100825979981889536 A fair point you might think. It seemed Comic Relief

Steerpike Steerpike

Rebecca Long-Bailey: the new shadow Brexit secretary?

Ever since deputy leader Tom Watson called for a shakeup of the Labour frontbench last week, in response to the departure of several MPs to the Independent Group, rumours have flown around Westminister that Jeremy Corbyn may be preparing for a reshuffle. But could it already have begun? Mr Steerpike spotted in a Labour press release last night that the Corbyn devotee Rebecca Long-Bailey, who is currently the shadow business secretary, seems to have been given a promotion. Instead of her current job title, the Salford MP was referred to as shadow Brexit secretary, which is errr, Keir Starmer’s job: While it remains unlikely that Long Bailey will take over

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Theresa May can dare to dream that her Brexit deal might pass

Can the Prime Minister dare to dream that her Brexit deal will pass – perhaps as soon as next week? It is striking how Brexiters from the ERG group are lining up to tell me how reasonable they are trying to be. After well over a hundred Tory MPs failed to vote for Yvette Cooper’s amendment last night, which simply captured the PM’s u-turn pledge to allow MPs to delay Brexit, one senior Tory texted me to insist this was “more cock up than conspiracy”. He said: “Bit of a mess. Nobody expected Cooper to move the amendment. Letwin had said they wouldn’t. People had left the chamber. Others thought

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theresa May: ‘I don’t just do what Olly Robbins tells me to’

On Tuesday night, as I write in the magazine this week, Theresa May met Leave-voting junior ministers. Her aim was to reassure them that she didn’t want an Article 50 extension and if there was one, it would be short. One of those present then asked her what would happen if Olly Robbins came back saying that a short extension was not negotiable. May was visibly irritated by this comment and shot back, ‘I don’t just do what Olly Robbins tells me to.’ She went on to say that a long extension ‘would be seen as a betrayal by the public’. This exchange is, I think, revealing. First, it shows

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Tom Watson damns Jeremy Corbyn with faint praise

Relations between the deputy leader of the Labour party, Tom Watson, and Jeremy Corbyn have reached something of a nadir in recent weeks. After a group of MPs left the party to form the Independent Group, Watson called on Labour to do more to tackle anti-Semitism within its ranks, and has continued to pile pressure on the leadership over its handling of the issue. Watson was on the airwaves this morning, to speak about the suspension of Chris Williamson and the state of the party more generally. But even for his standards, he struggled to display any enthusiasm about Labour’s current leader. Asked by the Today programme presenter Nick Robinson,

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

A pincer movement is closing around Jeremy Corbyn

Chaos theory’s assertion that tiny changes can have dramatic effects is being vindicated with a vengeance in Westminster. If not quite as paltry as a butterfly flapping its wing in the Amazonian rain forest, the creation of the Independent Group seemed a small event. Eight Labour and three Tory MPs joined. Eleven in total. Just 11: despite all the provocations of Brexit and Corbyn. Is that it? I thought when the breakaway began, and filed the groupuscule away under “lost causes”. As it has turned out, the small difference has made all the difference. Last night the Labour party removed the whip from Chris Williamson, a supporter of the Maduro

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

‘I’m not appealing to the nutter vote’

A woman dressed as a nun is standing outside the London Palladium with a placard, warning about ‘an evening with a religious extremist’. She refers to Jacob Rees-Mogg, who sold all 2,300 seats at the venue in a fortnight — a feat that enraged his critics all the more. The nun eventually found a loudspeaker to address Spectator subscribers, who waved cheerfully as they filed in to the theatre. This stage has played host to entertainers like Bruce Forsyth, Marvin Gaye, Tommy Steele and Jimmy Tarbuck — and now, the backbench MP for North East Somerset, offering an evening of political discussion. We live in strange times. He arrives late,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

May’s breaking point

The only certainty in the Brexit process is that there is no certainty. Brexiteers had long sought solace in the fact that, by law, the United Kingdom will leave the European Union on 29 March with or without a deal. But it’s now clear that this is not necessarily the case  —  or even likely. As we have seen this week, Theresa May is not in control of her party any more than Jeremy Corbyn is in control of his. Corbyn has been forced to move towards the idea of another ‘public vote’ on Brexit, though he has no enthusiasm for one, because he fears that if he doesn’t, MPs

Tony Abbott

No deal? No problem

Britain, we’re led to be believe, is heading for the worst catastrophe in its history. Officialdom is warning that a no-deal Brexit would mean trucks backed up for miles at Dover, chaos at airports, a special poverty fund to cope with the fallout and — horror! — a shortage of Guinness. So apparently the country that saw off Hitler, the Kaiser, Napoleon and the Spanish Armada is now paralysed with fear at the very thought of leaving the EU. Here in Australia, this story just doesn’t fit with the Britain that we know. A disorderly Brexit would mean, at most, a few months of inconvenience. Perhaps some modest transition costs.

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

What’s the worst business to be in right now? Sheep farming

What’s the very worst line of business you could be in, if we’re heading for a no-deal Brexit? Not finance, for sure: there’s a noticeable absence of squealing from the City, which has evidently made all the contingency plans it needs to continue making numbers dance on screens and booking the proceeds in convenient domiciles. Car manufacturing, on which I’ve written so much in recent weeks, clearly has its challenges — but the impediments of Brexit are no more than a tiresome sideshow compared to the industry’s wider technological and market issues. Fishing has been a bad career choice ever since we joined the Common Market and probably can’t get

Wednesday

James Kirkup James Kirkup

The Independent Group is already changing politics for the better

Most people at Westminster are betting against the Tiggers. Most people, if forced to guess, would predict that the Independent Group won’t become a new political party that wins scores of seats in the Commons. We can all recite the reasons: no membership, no machine, no leader, no policy platform, the electoral system… But maybe that doesn’t matter. Because there are more ways to change things than winning seats. Just ask Ukip – if you can find it these days. Ukip only ever won one seat in the Commons, and in truth it was Douglas Carswell not the party who delivered it. But Ukip still changed history: without it, David Cameron would

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Government score an own goal on citizens’ rights resignation

This evening the government accepted an amendment to ensure the EU citizens’ rights package in the Withdrawal Agreement still stands if the U.K. leaves without a deal. The amendment tabled by Tory MP Alberto Costa won widespread support in the Commons – an endorsement from the Home Secretary and was eventually taken on by No 10. Despite this, Costa will head home this evening having left his role as a Parliamentary Private Secretary for the Scotland Office. Costa tended his resignation earlier today as PPSs are not supposed to put down amendments. I understand Costa was asked whether he still wanted the amendment to be in his name – he

Steerpike Steerpike

Chris Williamson has been suspended from the Labour Party

It’s been a long time coming, but the Corbynite MP, Chris Williamson, has finally been suspended from Labour following his comments about anti-Semitism in the Party this week. The suspension follows the emergence of a video yesterday which showed Williamson speaking at a Sheffield Momentum event, saying that Labour had been ‘too apologetic’ for anti-Semitism. That same day, Williamson had come under fire for booking a room in parliament for a film screening about the ‘unfair’ expulsion of former Labour member Jackie Walker, who had been suspended in 2016 for making alleged anti-Semitic comments on Facebook, and saying that Jews were responsible for the African slave-trade. Williamson offered up a somewhat insincere

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Has the Independent Group ‘revolution’ fallen flat already?

Ten days since the start of the Great February Revolution (as historians are unlikely to call it) and the breakaway MPs must be feeling a bit miffed. The rebels, tagged as ‘TIGs’ in the press, are blessed with every advantage a political movement could hope for – apart from a logo, a creed, a headquarters, a constitution and a following. The 11-strong group have become the silent stars of PMQs. Seen but not heard. The Speaker failed again this Wednesday to ask a TIG to speak. Does their reticence signify anything? Perhaps trouble is brewing and the TIG bigwigs are trying to stop the membership from cracking up into dissident

Steerpike Steerpike

Has the Prime Minister snubbed the Liaison Committee?

In November last year, Theresa May was hauled in front of the Liaison Committee (a super committee made up of the chairs of other select committees) to be grilled about her Brexit strategy. It’s fair to say that it didn’t go particularly well for the Prime Minister, who faced barbed questions from the likes of Sarah Wollaston and Yvette Cooper about her fitness to lead, and whether she had adequately prepared for the negotiations. It appears that the memory left such a bad taste in the Prime Minister’s mouth, that she’s been avoiding the committee ever since. In a series of letters exchanged between Wollaston (the chair) and the PM, 

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

My evening with Jacob Rees-Mogg — live at the London Palladium

A woman dressed as a nun is standing outside the London Palladium with a placard, warning about ‘an evening with a religious extremist’. She refers to Jacob Rees-Mogg, who sold all 2,300 seats at the venue in a fortnight — a feat that enraged his critics all the more. The nun eventually found a loudspeaker to address Spectator subscribers, who waved cheerfully as they filed in to the theatre. This stage has played host to entertainers like Bruce Forsyth, Marvin Gaye, Tommy Steele and Jimmy Tarbuck — and now, the backbench MP for North East Somerset, offering an evening of political discussion. We live in strange times. He arrives late,