Politics

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

Tuesday

15 Jan 2019

Steerpike

Watch: Matt Hancock’s disastrous attempt to defend Theresa May

Theresa May made history tonight by notching up the largest defeat for a sitting government in British political history. But despite 118 Tory MPs rebelling against the Government, May can still count on some of her colleagues to try and defend her. Step forward, Matt Hancock. The health secretary popped up on the BBC to trot out the PM’s Brexit plan B: go back to the Commons and listen to MPs on what they do want. Unfortunately for Hancock, his attempt to explain what happens next didn’t inspire Mr S with much confidence: Andrew Neil: They’re ruling out reopening the agreement. What do you do now? Matt Hancock: There are two

Robert Peston

May’s disastrous defeat makes a Brexit delay inevitable

There is no coming back for the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal from the scale of a defeat by 432 to 202, the worst defeat by a Government for more than a century. In all normal circumstances a Prime Minister would resign when suffering such a humiliation on their central policy – and a policy Theresa May herself said today would “set the future of this country for generation”. But these are not normal times and Theresa May is not a normal prime minister. She said tonight she would fight on – subject of course to the Commons not in effect turfing her out if it backs Jeremy Corbyn’s motion of

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May’s Brexit deal rejected by MPs by 432 to 202 votes

Theresa May’s Brexit deal has been decisively rejected by MPs who voted 432 to 202 against the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement. The Prime Minister had told MPs to back her deal or risk “letting the British people down” but politicians voted down her deal in the biggest government defeat in the Commons in British history. The previous record was by a margin of 166 votes in 1924, when the Labour minority government lost a vote by 364 votes to 198. A total of 118 Tory MPs rebelled against the Government in the crunch vote tonight. Jeremy Corbyn responded to the PM by confirming that he would table a vote of no

Isabel Hardman

Has Theresa May just revealed her Brexit plan B?

Theresa May has just finished a speech in which she made clear – without using those words – that the Government is going to lose tonight’s meaningful vote and that she is now planning for the next Commons confrontation on Brexit. She managed to get one MP, Sir Edward Leigh, to withdraw his amendment on the basis that she was happy to work with him on ‘creative solutions’ to the backstop. She also promised that ‘the government will work harder at taking Parliament with us’ on Brexit. But this harder work doesn’t seem to include any moves towards working with Labour on some kind of national unity movement to stop

Isabel Hardman

Labour MPs threaten to push Corbyn into supporting a second referendum

Labour MPs who want a second referendum are threatening to table their own motion calling for one next week if their frontbench fails to do so. Jeremy Corbyn is expected to call for a vote of no confidence in the government once Theresa May’s deal is defeated in the Commons this evening. The Labour leadership has refused to do this until now because it doesn’t want to hold a vote it is certain to lose, but the pressure has now grown so great for a vote that it will be extremely difficult for Corbyn to dodge it, even though the DUP have said they will stop the government from falling

Isabel Hardman

Conservative MPs are running out of patience with Theresa May

Westminster has been a febrile place for months, but today, as the meaningful vote on Theresa May’s Brexit vote approaches, it has tipped into something quite different. The streets around the House of Commons are lined with protesters from all sides, clutching placards, ringing bells and chanting. Flags are swirling, balloons are bobbling in the air, and drivers are honking their horns – though having cycled through the crowd earlier, I’m not sure whether the horns are necessarily ones of support for one group or another, or actually just drivers trying to stop people wandering out in front of them in the road. Inside the parliamentary estate, though, the mood

Katy Balls

Bercow vs Government, Part VIII: Speaker rejects Murrison amendment

Relations between the Speaker and the government have taken yet another turn for the worse this afternoon. Ahead of tonight’s vote on Theresa May’s doomed Brexit deal, ministers had hoped that an amendment tabled by Andrew Murrison – calling for an end date on the backstop – could win backbench support and save the Prime Minister from humiliation this evening. However, John Bercow had other ideas – and did not select the amendment for the vote. Instead, Bercow selected four amendments from Labour, SNP, Edward Leigh and John Barron. This means three seemingly government friendly amendments – from Murrison, Hugo Swire and a group of Labour MPs – have been

James Kirkup

The question that Leavers and Remainers still can’t answer

Why did Britain vote for Brexit? As Parliament gazes into the abyss, the question seems worth asking, even if I don’t pretend to be able to offer a simple answer. And that’s the point, really. Britain is teetering on the brink of a grand failure of policy and politics because, insofar as anyone involved has even wondered why a majority of voters rejected Britain’s political-economic settlement in June 2016, they have generally come up with simple, shallow answers. Among No Deal Leavers, most explanations for the referendum result these days refer to “control” (especially over immigration policy) or “sovereignty” or some nebulous idea of the economic opportunities that lie in

Ross Clark

Brexiteers owe Dominic Grieve and Gina Miller a debt of gratitude

If, as seems inevitable, the Commons votes to reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal later today – thereby sparing Britain from the humiliation of being trapped in the backstop, forced to accept EU rules without having a say in them – the hero of the hour will be Dominic Grieve. Him and Anna Soubry, Nicky Morgan, Kenneth Clarke, Sarah Woolaston and a gaggle of other Remain MPs. Why? Because it was only thanks to them that the Commons is getting its meaningful vote on the Brexit deal. It was they who rebelled against the government in December 2017 to make sure that such a vote would be held. Remarkably, not a

James Forsyth

Why a no confidence motion may help Theresa May

We have got used to a lot of odd things in British politics recently. Many of the usual rules have been suspended: Theresa May has survived losing her majority in an election she called and we’ve seen the departure of not one, but two Brexit Secretaries. But tonight she will defeated by a massive margin on the central plank of her governing programme. The consequences of this will be unpredictable—which is precisely why the government pulled the vote in December. Things could spiral out of Theresa May’s control very quickly. So far, the government looks out of luck in its attempt to limit the damage. There hasn’t been anything like

Steerpike

John Bercow only has eyes for Labour

While much remains uncertain when it comes to how Brexit will play out in the coming days and weeks, it is clear that John Bercow will play a pivotal role. To the dismay of government figures, the Speaker has of late refused to follow parliamentary norms – choosing to ignore precedent just last week when he accepted a Dominic Grieve amendment even though clerks had advised him not to. On Monday, Conservative MP Matt Warman asked the Speaker whether there were any more precedents he planned to change on the coming days. Bercow did not take the question kindly and chastised the executive for questioning his authority – and impartiality. Only

Robert Peston

Theresa May will lose tonight but she will still cling to her Brexit deal

Theresa May will lose the vote tonight on her Brexit plan, widely seen as the most important vote in Parliament since the early years of the Second World War, and yet nothing of importance may change – or at least not immediately, at least. How can that possibly be – especially since she could well lose by a record-busting and humiliating margin of more than 100 votes? It is because she is very unlikely to acknowledge that her deal is dead, and will instead announce shortly after the defeat that she will have another go at negotiating with EU leaders to amend it so as to make it acceptable to

Steerpike

Listen: Michael Gove and Nick Robinson’s Today programme scrap

Tensions are running high today in Westminster, as Theresa May’s Brexit deal finally comes before the the House of Commons. Those supporting the deal are in for a tricky day, as they prepare themselves for what could be a historic defeat. This may explain why environment secretary Michael Gove was on the defensive this morning, as he went out to bat for the Prime Minister’s deal on the airwaves. Less clear though is why he was met by an even more disgruntled Nick Robinson who was interviewing him on the Today programme. After some early skirmishes between the pair, it was Robinson who set the cat among the pigeons by

Monday

14 Jan 2019

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May survives no confidence vote in the Commons

Theresa May has survived a vote of confidence in the Commons by 325 votes to 306. Tory MPs – as well as the DUP’s members – backed the Prime Minister in tonight’s crunch vote. The decisive support from the Conservative party meant that the votes of Labour, SNP and Lib Dem MPs were not enough to oust the PM. Theresa May responded to winning the vote by inviting Jeremy Corbyn to Downing Street for Brexit talks. But the Labour leader – who earlier said May was leading a ‘zombie government’ – said he would only enter into discussions if the PM ruled out a no deal Brexit.

James Forsyth

Is John Bercow preparing to pull off another procedural trick?

There has just been another series of pointed exchanges between government backbenchers and the Speaker over procedure. Following the Sunday papers and the Boles plan released earlier today, several Tory MPs sought reassurance on procedure from John Bercow. Bercow was strikingly unwilling to give it. He approvingly quoted Willie Whitelaw’s dictum that bridges are best crossed when you come to them. If Bercow’s intention was to wind up the government frontbench and Tory MPs, he certainly succeeded. When Bercow gave a lengthy reply to Kevin Brennan’s point of order about how people who act as the lickspittles of the whips’ don’t get much respect, one minister heckled. Bercow then went

Isabel Hardman

May’s new Brexit pitch: my bad deal is better than no deal

If you’re a not particularly impressive leader of a political party preparing a response to any statement given by Theresa May, the easiest phrase that you can lazily reach for is ‘nothing has changed’. You know it will apply to anything the Prime Minister says about how she has improved her Brexit deal. All three main party leaders appeared to conform to those easy predictions this afternoon. Theresa May stood up and tried to convince MPs that she had secured important changes to the deal that meant they should support it tomorrow. Jeremy Corbyn replied that nothing had changed and that there should be a general election, while Ian Blackford

Isabel Hardman

John Bercow steps up his battle with ministers

John Bercow clearly isn’t backing down in his stand-off with ministers. Today he opened a new front in the House of Commons, taking aim at the government for refusing to allow MPs who are pregnant or on maternity leave to have a proxy vote. The issue came up when Harriet Harman made a point of order about her colleague Tulip Siddiq, who has had to postpone the caesarean section for her baby so that she can vote tomorrow. Harman asked the Speaker whether he could give the Hampstead and Kilburn MP a proxy vote, but Bercow replied that this was not something he was able to do himself. He continued

Katy Balls

Can the Murrison amendment prevent humiliation for May?

In Parliament a glimmer of hope has emerged ahead of the vote on Theresa May’s seemingly doomed Brexit deal. It’s not that it suddenly has a hope of passing as it is – instead it’s that a backbencher amendment could carve a way out of the Brexit deadlock. Usually loyal backbencher Andrew Murrison has tabled an amendment for the withdrawal agreement which sets an expiry date for the backstop for December 31 2021. A time limited backstop is something the EU has rejected but Tory Brexiteers (and the DUP) demand one if they are to support May’s deal. Such a change would most likely require the reopening of the withdrawal agreement

Steerpike

Mel Stride’s picture perfect ‘no deal preparations’

With only one day to go until the vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, the government has been doing its best to convince wavering MPs that supporting it is the only way to avoid the catastrophic consequences of no-deal Brexit. Which may explain why the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mel Stride, was snapped today carrying these scary notes on a piece of paper (conveniently sticking out of his folder) as he left a meeting in 10 Downing Street: Mel Stride Financial sec to treasury paymaster gen leaving this afternoons brexit cabinet meeting showing some disturbing facts !!!! pic.twitter.com/Mgf3vWPCyi — PoliticalPics (@PoliticalPics) January 14, 2019 But if Mr Steerpike could

Steerpike

MP’s best friendship lies lost in the Commons

As the Brexit vote looms closer, the whips are on a hunt for MPs. Not so much to discover how they’ll be voting, though, but to find the owner of a lost ring. A message went out to MPs from their whips this morning saying that ‘a silver ring with the inscription “forever best friends” has been found in the toilet in the voting lobby’. Mr S wonders what sort of an MP has a ‘forever best friend’ – and whether the ring was in fact discarded after the forever friendship was shattered by Brexit tensions. There are more than enough candidates for that…

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