Politics

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

Tuesday

Robert Peston Robert Peston

The ultimatum that will be given to Theresa May at cabinet today

There will be two more momentous issues discussed at this morning’s cabinet – neither on the PM’s own agenda, but which will be forced on her by recalcitrant colleagues. Yes another two historic decisions. Yawn. One group of ministers – Rudd, Gauke, Clark and conceivably Hammond and Lidington too, inter alia – will warn the PM that they will resign after cabinet unless she commits that there will be ANOTHER amendable meaningful vote on 13 February, that would allow them at that juncture to vote to take a no-deal Brexit off the table. Presumably when presented with this ultimatum the PM will concede. But who can be sure any more?

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Can the Malthouse Compromise break the Brexit deadlock?

After the European Research Group announced on Monday night that they would not get behind the Brady amendment to replace the backstop with alternative arrangements, it looked as though the grand plan to salvage Theresa May’s deal was on the rocks. Now there is a new proposal doing the rounds which has the backing of both senior ERG members – including Steve Baker – and the support of Remain-leaning Tories including Nicky Morgan. Dubbed the Malthouse Compromise (in honour of housing minister Kit Malthouse who helped broker the proposal) it lays out an alternative to the backstop. The proposal is comprised of two parts. Plan A is to reopen the

Monday

Stephen Arnell

Brexit would have been Flashman’s finest hour

With the 50th anniversary of the publication of George MacDonald Fraser’s first Flashman novel, how would Thomas Hughes’ school bully have handled British politics today — and who’s most like our favourite literary cad? Given recent allegations of sexism and bullying in the Commons, Flash would have found himself at home. If Westminster is a boarding school, Flash would be among the prefects, pushing around the sneaks, sots and brown-nosers, and paying court to those further up the greasy pole. ‘Kiss up, Kick down,’ as they say. Flash is always at his best in a total fiasco, so Brexit would have been his finest hour. Expert at taking multiple positions, on and off the battlefield, he would have

Matthew Lesh

Sadiq Khan is wrong about rent control

Rent control would worsen London’s housing crisis while hurting the poor, immigrants, and minorities. Yet Sadiq Khan wants to make it the central plank of his bid to win re-election as London Mayor. Khan has said the case for rent control is ‘overwhelming’ and that ‘Londoners overwhelmingly want it to happen’. But while some may see rent control as a way of capping the money going into the pockets of landlords, it would actually make London’s problems worse. Rent control would lead to less home building—what London actually needs. On top of that it will mean lower quality housing and discrimination against the most vulnerable. From San Francisco to Stockholm, Berlin and New York, rent

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Theresa May has thrown the dice up in the air tonight

I have given up trying to understand Theresa May. I used to think she was the most methodical and risk-averse of politicians. But she has tonight thrown the dice up in the air – or perhaps, to use George Osborne’s analogy, pointed the loaded revolver at herself. Because she is whipping for the Brady amendment that calls on her to rip up the backstop and replace it with unspecified alternative arrangements to keep open the border on the island of Ireland. And she is doing that to prove to the EU that if it dumps the backstop, her Brexit plan might at the last be ratified by MPs – and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

May urges Tory MPs to give her something to battle for

Theresa May has met Tory MPs tonight in a last-ditch effort to try and persuade them to vote for the Brady amendment tomorrow. She said that she would go back to Brussels and push for ‘fundamental changes’ to the backstop. But to do that, she needed to be able to show the EU that parliament was behind her—and so, MPs had to vote for the Brady amendment. May said that the government would whip in favour of Brady, essentially making it government policy. (Some in the room, though, say that May suggested in one answer that this would be subject to Cabinet agreement). Getting the Brady amendment through will be

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The traditionalist worldview has gone from orthodoxy to punchline to nostalgia to ‘hate’ in a startlingly short space of time

I recently rewatched The Birdcage, Mike Nichols’ pleasing farce of clashing values, a Hollywood adaption of Jean Poiret’s lighter, sharper 1973 play La Cage aux Folles. The son of drag club owner Armand Goldman (a dialled-up Robin Williams) has proposed to the daughter of Republican Senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman, almost camper than Williams) and tries to arrange a dinner for the two families without Keeley discovering that Armand is gay. In the end, everyone learns to get along and some riotous slapstick disrupts the mildly preachy tone. It’s not Nichols’ best work but in 1996 it was a step up from the Four Fucks and a Funeral movies that

Katy Balls Katy Balls

May’s deal on rocks as ERG reject backstop plan

When Sir Graham Brady tabled his Brexit amendment asserting that Theresa May’s deal would be palatable if the backstop is replaced with an alternative arrangement, the hope was that enough Conservative MPs would align behind it to show Brussels that – so long as they were prepared to compromise – a deal could pass the Commons. That plan has hit a fairly large stumbling block this evening. Members of the European Research Group – made up of backbench Tory Eurosceptics – gathered in Portcullis House to come up with a formal position ahead of tomorrow night’s vote. The consensus was that they would not back the Brady amendment – nor

Tom Slater Tom Slater

It’s no wonder young people are falling out of love with Corbyn

One of the ironies of contemporary British politics is that many younger voters – some of whom are so opposed to eurosceptic baby boomers that they accuse them of ‘stealing their future’ – are also enamoured with Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader is, after all, a eurosceptic baby boomer who some still speculate might have secretly voted Leave at the referendum. But a poll out today suggests that the Corbyn coalition is finally beginning to creak under the weight of this contradiction. According to an Opinium survey, commissioned by For our Future’s Sake (FFS), the student wing of the People’s Vote campaign, just 23 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds approve of Corbyn’s handling of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s Immigration Bill stance shows how much Jeremy Corbyn has changed

A row is brewing in the Commons over Labour’s stance on the Immigration Bill, which has its second reading this evening. The party’s whips told MPs this morning that they would be on a one-line whip for this piece of legislation, with the plan being to abstain on the vote itself. Centrist MPs in particular are angry about this, suggesting the Labour leadership is trying to ‘pander to Ukip’ by not opposing the Bill outright. Abstaining at Second Reading is normally something a party does to signal that it supports some aspects of a bill, while having concerns about others. It neither wants to oppose or support the legislation outright

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Theresa May could soon face her biggest humiliation yet

The Brexiters in and around the Tory European Research Group are now telling me they are minded to vote against the Murrison/Brady amendment – which would mandate the PM to replace the backstop with some other unspecified arrangement to avert a hard border on the island of Ireland. Why? Well one of them told me it is because they fear it is a ‘bait and switch’ – namely a deft con to sucker them into ultimately voting for a Brexit plan they can’t stomach. So that seems the end of that. And proves quite how little mutual trust there is between the PM and much of her own party. So

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Jeremy Corbyn’s miserable Monday morning

Did Jeremy Corbyn get out of the wrong side of bed this morning? Mr S. only asks because the Labour leader was somewhat short of words when he was asked whether his party would or wouldn’t be backing Yvette Cooper’s key Brexit amendment in the Commons tomorrow. Here’s how he greeted a BBC journalist who asked him that as he left his house  arlier today: Oh dear…

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Why this week could end in more Brexit deadlock

On paper, this week ought to be a decisive one for the government’s Brexit position. After Theresa May’s Brexit deal was voted down by 230 votes, MPs now have the chance to vote on their own amendments to that deal. The majority are non-binding – but they do carry political weight – while a handful would lead to legislation and therefore force the government’s hand. The two amendments currently being talked up as the most likely to pass are the Yvette Cooper amendment to stop no deal and the Graham Brady amendment to ditch the backstop. The Brady amendment seeks to make clear that MPs will back May’s deal if

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It would be a mistake for the ERG to not back the Brady amendment

Bernard Jenkin has just told ITV’s Romilly Weeks that he won’t currently be voting for the Brady amendment. This suggests that the amendment won’t have the numbers as a large chunk of the ERG won’t vote for it. Even from an ERG perspective, this is—to my mind—a tactical mistake. If the Brady amendment doesn’t get a majority on Tuesday, it will be taken by Brussels and by many in the cabinet as proof that a Tory DUP alliance can’t get any withdrawal agreement through. After all, anyone who won’t vote for Brady is saying that they wouldn’t vote for the withdrawal agreement even if the backstop was replaced by ‘alternative

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

The liberal case for Brexit

Anyone for Whexit? I voted Remain. The theoretical arguments seemed finely balanced, so boring old pragmatism decided it. On the one hand I feel vindicated by the current shambles. But on the other hand, oddly enough, I have become more conscious of the case for leaving. And if we really are leaving it seems worthwhile to accentuate this. But ‘Brexit’ feels tarnished by crude jingoism, and I’m a liberal. I propose that we affirm our exit on old-fashioned liberal grounds: Whig Brexit: Whexit. The assumption is that the EU is a great promoter and defender of liberal values. But ultimately it’s an unhealthy assumption. Liberal values are only fully real when the

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: George Osborne takes another swipe at Theresa May

One of the bitterest and most public feuds in Westminster since the 2016 Brexit referendum has been between the former Chancellor George Osborne and the Prime Minster Theresa May. When Osborne was unceremoniously sacked by May from his cabinet position in 2016, he seemed to vow revenge, and has since delighted at every opportunity as editor of the Evening Standard to produce front pages mocking and attacking his former colleague. Recent signs suggest that the passage of time has not tempered his anger. Osborne appears this evening on the BBC documentary Inside Europe, which follows the negotiations between David Cameron and the European Union ahead of the Brexit referendum. In the programme, the main cast

Sunday

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbynistas intervene on Venezuela

Once upon a time Venezuela was talked up by British socialists – from John McDonnell to Richard Burgon – as an example of a better way. As Jeremy Corbyn put it back in 2013: ‘Chavez showed us that there is a different and better way of doing things. It’s called socialism, it’s called social justice and it’s something that Venezuela has made a big step towards.’ Only ever since there were mass food shortages and toilet paper rations – with 82pc of households living in poverty – the majority of Corbynistas have gone a little quiet on the subject. However, as Chavez’s successor President Nicolás Maduro faces a political crisis amid mass

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up – Simon Coveney: The backstop ‘isn’t going to change’

Andrew Marr was joined this morning by the Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney. The interview turned immediately to the divisive backstop, the arrangement whereby the UK could effectively remain in the EU’s customs union after 2020 if no alternative arrangement is made to avoid a ‘hard border’ on Northern Ireland. Coveney told Marr that there was no appetite from either the Irish government or the EU for further change: AM: Can I ask you first of all whether you are prepared to shift at all on this very vexed question of the backstop? SC: Well, I mean, the straight answer to that is that the backstop is already a

Steerpike Steerpike

Momentum’s job search fails

If there’s one thing that really gets under the skin of Momentum, the campaign group for Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, it’s that the economy has steadily improved under this Conservative government. While the group constantly tries to suggest that only Corbyn can rescue the country from economic peril, statistics that show, for example, that unemployment is falling across the country throw an awkward spanner in the works. The group has therefore recently alighted on a new response to counter suggestions that more people are in work, by pointing out that official employment statistics include people who only work one hour every week: Whilst the Government continues to brag about 'record employment',

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can Theresa May get any Brexit plan through the Commons?

Tuesday is the last chance for those MPs who want to secure as meaningful a Brexit as possible, I write in The Sun this morning. That evening, MPs will vote on a series of Brexit amendments designed to show the EU what kind of withdrawal agreement the Commons would accept. If one of them passes, then Theresa May can go back to Brussels and say: look, this is what will get the deal through my parliament. It would give her a decent chance of getting the EU to engage. But if none of these amendments can muster a majority, then the EU will simply sit tight. It knows that this