Brexit

I asked important EU and UK people involved in Brexit talks what they made of Boris Johnson’s claim on BBC that: 1: The EU would be prepared to cancel the Northern Ireland backstop. 2: Continue free and frictionless trade with UK for an “implementation period” after Brexit on 31st October. 3: Negotiate a new package of measures to keep an open border on the island of Ireland during the implementation period, and; 4: Would break all their own red lines because they won’t like Nigel Farage’s 29 MEPs turning up at the European Parliament, and will panic when Johnson says he won’t necessarily pay all the £39bn Theresa May agreed that the UK owes

I am besieged by media folk asking when I shall make good on a four-year-old threat to flee to Buenos Aires should Boris Johnson become prime minister. How can I get on to a flight, I ask, when so many other voters are already waitlisted? In truth, however, we are being served successive courses in a national banquet of self-harm, too grisly to merit jokes. Nobody should blame Johnson for wanting to be prime minister: many unsuitable people do. But there will be infinite historical curiosity about how the Tory parliamentary party could scramble to deliver Britain into the custody of a man whom few of its members would entrust

When Boris Johnson was appointed editor of this magazine two decades ago, an unkind soul said it was like ‘entrusting a Ming vase in the hands of an ape’. The remark encapsulated many people’s worst fears about the man who will almost certainly be Britain’s prime minister in four weeks’ time, if not before: that Boris is an irresponsible joker. Similar warnings were made when he was elected London mayor. His refusal to conform to type encourages a constant expectation of imminent disaster. What if Boris flops in No. 10? Even his supporters can’t be sure he won’t fail: his election as leader is a gamble from a party that

We all know this is a great country. Sadly, it’s one currently very poorly led by a political elite, some masquerading as non-elite, which has great difficulties discerning and telling the truth. I am discouraged by just how badly Brexit has been handled to date, and currently pessimistic that this is going to get any better any time soon. I am worried that the longer the sheer lack of seriousness and honesty, the delusion mongering goes on, the more we imperil our long-term prospects. It is not patriotism to keep on failing to confront realities and to make serious choices from the options which exist, rather than carrying on conjuring

And then there were six. The Conservative leadership contest already feels interminable – and, let’s face it, it’s been going since the day after the 2017 election. And yet it’s only this week that the candidates have formally thrown their hats in the ring. We’ve already been treated to bucketloads of ambitious claims, bold rhetoric, and appeals to the power of positive thinking. We’ve had precious little, however, that even begins to respond to the key questions raised by the largest single issue confronting us. So in an attempt to be helpful, we thought we’d address those still in the race and list these Brexit questions in the hope that

The first time I felt like an outsider was when I was six years old. My cousin told me we needed to change our walking route to her school because of the ‘bad kids’ who supported the National Front. That was the first time. But not the last. When I was at secondary school, the other kids told me all about their summer holidays. I’d only ever go to Rochdale but pretended I’d been abroad like them, because they couldn’t tell if I had a tan. When I wanted to do the O-levels and A-levels I needed although I had a couple of inspiring teachers who I’ll be forever grateful to I

Is this the best the Conservative and Unionist party can do? Really? The extraordinary thing about Boris Johnson’s campaign to become the country’s next prime minister is that even the people supporting him do not think he’s up to the job of being prime minister. The best that may be said of him is that he may defeat Jeremy Corbyn though, frankly, I wouldn’t want to bet on that.  But, his friends and allies say, you can set aside your concerns about Johnson’s suitability for the highest political office in the land. He will have help, you see. He’ll be surrounded by good people – though this is also something

Since being elected a Brexit Party MEP, I have gone from gamekeeper to poacher as far as the broadcast media is concerned. Until six weeks ago, I had the privilege of being a commentator who could sit on couches endlessly pontificating. Now as a politician, I’m the target of my fellow commentators. They either discuss me in my absence or ask a series of staccato questions with little room for context or nuance.  Maybe I’m fair game. After all, I have spent two decades as a Radio 4 Moral Maze panelist interrogating witnesses. This, perhaps, is my comeuppance. Yet what I’ve learned about the way the broadcast media works in recent weeks

As an immigrant Remain voter, I am starting to worry about my fellow members of the metropolitan elite. Some of those whose cause I share dutifully attend protest marches, attack people whose political views they don’t share and talk cheerfully about the rise of fascism. The madness of this supposedly liberal cause is in plain sight, yet it continues to thrive, boosted supposedly by Remain’s performance in the EU elections. We were told by some that Remain won the election in which a six-week old Brexit Party captured first place, a third of the popular vote and 40 per cent of seats. It rather reminded me of how we do

Boris Johnson is to be tried at the Crown Court on the grounds that, during the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign, he crucially affected the referendum result by arguing that the UK paid the EU £350 million a week, ignoring another interpretation that the sum was only £250 million a week. Ancient Greeks knew all about advocating one side of an issue, as a law suit exemplifies. Euphiletus was the defendant in a homicide case brought against him by the relatives of one Eratosthenes. The relatives claimed that Euphiletus had murdered Eratosthenes after luring, or even forcing, him into his house as part of a premeditated plan. But Euphiletus’s defence (we