Home The EU published its negotiating position on Britain’s period of transition, from 30 March 2019 until 31 December 2020. Britain would have to abide by the rules of the single market, customs union, free movement and decisions of the European Court of Justice, as well as new EU laws. Britain would have no representatives
Home Boris Johnson went on manoeuvres again. The media were briefed that, in a meeting of the cabinet, he would call for the National Health Service to be given another £100 million a week. ‘Mr Johnson is the Foreign Secretary,’ Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said. ‘I gave the Health Secretary an extra
Home Carillion, the construction and service-provider with 20,000 employees and many contracts for the public sector, went into liquidation with debts of £1.5 billion, owing 30,000 businesses £1 billion. The government said it would pay employees and small businesses working on Carillion’s public contracts ‘to keep vital public services running rather than to provide a
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, tried to shuffle her cabinet, but Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, refused to become Business Secretary and stayed put with the words ‘Social Care’ added to his title. Sajid Javid, the Communities Secretary, had ‘Housing’ tacked on to his. Justine Greening spent three hours with Mrs May and emerged
Home In a message for the New Year, as though it were an immemorial custom, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Most people just want the government to get on and deliver a good Brexit, and that’s exactly what we are doing.’ It seemed a long time since, just before Christmas, Damian Green had resigned
January ‘No deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain,’ Theresa May, the Prime Minister, declared in a speech at Lancaster House. Britain would leave the single market and customs union on leaving the European Union, she said. The Supreme Court ruled that only by an Act of Parliament could Article 50
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, was thrown into a political crisis, along with the negotiations for Brexit, during a protracted lunch in Brussels with Jean- Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission. At first, smiles and Mr Juncker’s special cheerful tie had suggested that Britain had paid enough and said enough to be
Home The engagement was announced of Prince Henry of Wales, aged 33, and the Los Angeles-born Meghan Markle, an actress aged 36. They are to marry at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in May. Ms Markle scotched rumours that she might be a Catholic, declaring herself a Protestant preparing to be baptised into the Church of
Home The cabinet, including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, agreed that the European Union would have to be offered something like £40 billion in the fond hope that at the summit on 14 December it would agree to start talking about a trade agreement. Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator, made a speech reminding the City
Home As the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill faced 470 amendments in its examination by a committee of the whole House, David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, promised that Parliament would be able to have a final take-it-or-leave-it say on the Brexit agreement, which would become law by an Act of Parliament. He said: ‘It’s a meaningful
Home An air of crisis hung over the government. Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, was told to fly back immediately from Africa after a series of secret meetings with Israeli political figures was revealed. Sir Michael Fallon had already gone as Defence Secretary, to be replaced by someone called Gavin Williamson, an MP since
Home A great ferment of accusations of sexual impropriety was made against people in Parliament and out of it. Bex Bailey, a Labour party worker, said she was raped, not by an MP, at a party event in 2011 and a senior Labour official discouraged her from reporting it. Jared O’Mara MP had the Labour
Home Of perhaps 400 Britons returned from the former territory of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, those who ‘do not justify prosecution’ should be reintegrated, Max Hill, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told the BBC. Rory Stewart MP, asked about foreigners fighting for the Islamic State in Syria, said that ‘the only
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, and David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, went to Brussels and had dinner with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission and the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier. They came up with a joint statement that ‘efforts should accelerate over the months to come’. But by this week’s meeting
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, when asked by Iain Dale in an interview on LBC: ‘If there was a Brexit vote now, would you vote Brexit?’ repeatedly refused to say. Earlier, briefing the House of Commons on Brexit, she said that the country must prepare for ‘every eventuality’. The government published two papers on
Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, told her audience at the Conservative party conference that she wanted to continue, like them, to ‘do our duty by Britain’. She said the government planned to make it easier for local authorities to build council houses. On the eve of the conference, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, in
Home Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, told the party conference that Labour was ‘on the threshold of power’. The party had been ‘war-game-type scenario-planning’ for things like ‘a run on the pound’, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said at a fringe meeting. Mr McDonnell had delighted conference-goers by denouncing Private Finance Initiatives: ‘We will bring
Home Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, issued a manifesto for a ‘glorious future’ for Britain outside the European Union as ‘the greatest country on Earth’. This was seen as a challenge to Theresa May, the Prime Minister. People like Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, and Kenneth Clarke, the Tory arch-Remainer, said he should
Home The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill was given a second reading by 326 votes to 290, with seven Labour MPs rebelling against the whip. Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, said it would be quite all right for Britain to stay in the European Union after all, with agreed adjustments to the free movement
Home On being asked if she meant to lead the Conservatives into the next election, due in 2022, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Yes. I’m in this for the long term.’ Echoing Peter Mandelson’s remark in 2001, she said: ‘I’m not a quitter.’ Research by Conservative Home found that 52 per cent of Conservative
