Politics

The letter from Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk ahead of tomorrow’s vote is not the cavalry arriving. It is more a restatement of what has gone before than anything else. If the EU is to make a big play to help Theresa May’s deal pass it will come before a second vote; as one Secretary of State lamented to me last week the EU has already written off this vote. But the letter is a reminder that May hasn’t sold this deal as well as she could. As the letter states, ‘the Withdrawal Agreement is also clear that any new act that the European Union proposes should be added to

As things stand, it looks inevitable that Theresa May’s Brexit deal will be defeated in the House of Commons on Tuesday, but what happens afterwards is the great unknown. While a number of MPs have voiced their opposition to May’s deal and no deal, the majority still have not made clear what they would support in its place. And unless there is a parliamentary majority for another option, Britain will leave the EU on 29 March without a deal by default. So what is there a majority for in the Commons? In an attempt to find out, Coffee House has compiled the public Brexit position of every single Tory MP.

Theresa May is making a last ditch attempt this morning to convince MPs to back her Brexit deal when it’s finally put to a vote tomorrow evening. To do this, the Prime Minister will cite the 1997 referendum on creating the Welsh assembly. In that vote, Yes won by 0.3 percent, on a turnout of just over 50 percent – yet it was still enacted: ‘That result was accepted by both sides, and the popular legitimacy of that institution has never seriously been questioned.’ Alas, Mr S suspects it’s not the best example for May to go on. After that vote, the Tories argued against the creation of the assembly and

It’s no secret in Westminster that Philip Hammond’s idea of the best Brexit possible is one that keeps Britain close to the EU. The Chancellor spent the last year issuing dire prophecies about the impact of a hard Brexit and his Treasury forecasts have become infamous for spelling out the doom and gloom of no deal. But are Hammond’s Project Fear warnings catching on? Mr Steerpike can reveal, after the Treasury released documents under the Freedom of Information Act, that Hammond met with several business bigwigs last year, only for them to issue similarly dire Brexit assessments shortly afterwards. Mr S is happy to present them to you now: Airbus

This week, Universities UK and the Russell Group, seemingly speaking on behalf of the whole sector, produced an Open Letter from distinguished vice-chancellors. ‘It is no exaggeration to suggest,’ said the letter, ‘that this [leaving the EU without a deal] would be an academic, cultural and scientific setback from which it would take decades to recover.’ Actually, it would be as exaggerated as a Donald Trump tweet. The detail of this is brilliantly demonstrated by Noel Malcolm in an analysis for Briefings for Brexit. The bit that made me burst out laughing was Sir Noel’s comparison of a similar Open Letter, from 103 university vice-chancellors, just before the referendum vote

If hell is other people, Twitter is the Devil’s noticeboard. Occasionally, though, its asteroid-inviting awfulness unearths a little insight into human nature, specifically when our instincts clash with our ideology. Take J.K. Rowling, author of the Cormoran Strike series who has also dabbled a little in children’s fiction. The Scottish novelist is a well-kent supporter of left-of-centre causes and has backed up her conscience with her coin. Her broadsides against Donald Trump and Brexit have made her an enemy of the intemperate right. Far more perplexing is that strain of leftist that bears ill-will towards someone whose politics are barely distinguishable from Neil Kinnock’s and who — I do so

People are talking about the ugly protests outside parliament as if they are a new and strange phenomenon in British politics. The rough bellowing at politicians. The hollering of the word ‘Nazi!’ at people who clearly aren’t Nazis. The attempt to shout down politicians and journalists who simply want to make a political point. It is all so shocking and strange and un-British, commentators claim. Really? To me, the protests look and sound incredibly familiar. They look like another expression of the nasty, censorious, violent-minded political correctness that has been growing for years in this country. These protests aren’t fascism in action — they’re political correctness in action. All the elements are there. The

Before Christmas, we at The Spectator arranged an evening with Jacob Rees-Mogg. The idea was that I’d interview him in front of our readers, and he’d take questions. After just one advert in the magazine, we sold out: a thousand tickets, gone. So, what to do? We may come to regret this, but we’re doing something that, until a while ago, I’d never have expected to happen: booked the London Palladium, one of the biggest theatres in the West End, for an evening of political discussion with a backbench MP. This is all quite unusual, but we live in unusual times. And there’s a decent chance that we’ll sell out this

At the end of last year Labour MP Fiona Onasanya was convicted of perverting the course of justice, after lying to police about a speeding charge. She has since been suspended from the Labour party but will remain the MP for Peterborough unless she is recalled or sentenced to longer than one year in jail. In response to the verdict, Onasanya had what we might call an unusual reaction. In messages to colleagues the MP compared her plight to that of Jesus and Moses and in a newspaper column, vowed to carry on fighting as an independent MP, promising to fight this ‘botched Brexit deal’: ‘This is why I have continued to