Brexit

Wednesday

13 Mar 2019

Michael Gove’s Brexit agony

I feel particularly sorry for Michael Gove, because there is psychological torment here. His understandable reasoning for not resigning over Theresa May’s Chequers proposal was that he had been accused first of betraying David Cameron, then of betraying Boris Johnson. He could not face being accused of a third betrayal by walking out on Mrs May. This meant that he unintentionally betrayed the cause of Brexit. He is now the government’s media apologist for whatever piece of contortion comes out of Downing Street, and is humiliated when the line he has just peddled collapses a few hours later. This article is an extract from Charles Moore’s Spectator Notes, which appears in

Matthew Lynn

Philip Hammond’s Spring Statement was a missed opportunity

As Philip Hammond rose to the despatch box to deliver his Spring Statement, the Chancellor must have felt like someone who wanted to talk about the funny noise the radiator was making half-way through extra-time of England’s World Cup semi-final last summer. Everyone’s attention was understandably elsewhere. If he was feeling mischievous he could have probably abolished inheritance tax, or slapped VAT on children’s clothes, safe in the knowledge that amid all the Brexit chaos it would have been safely forgotten by about 2pm. And yet, even by his own lugubrious standards, Hammond surely missed an opportunity. There is nothing wrong with a bit of small-scale fiddling – a review

James Forsyth

Philip Hammond tore up the Brexit script at his Spring Statement

Brexit was always going to dominate this Spring Statement. Philip Hammond even began by saying he’d keep it short to allow the Commons to move on to the ‘no deal’ debate. But the most eye-catching thing Hammond said on Brexit came at the very end. He talked about the need to build consensus across the House. This is Westminster code for a customs union style solution. Hammond has been making the case for this approach at Cabinet for quite a while now. But it isn’t yet Government policy—most ministers still think that there is a chance May’s deal could pass in a third meaningful vote. So it was quite remarkable

Isabel Hardman

Hammond to MPs: make up your mind on Brexit or the domestic policies get it

Philip Hammond’s squeeze message to MPs trying to work out how to vote on Brexit over the next few days was clear: if they don’t reach a consensus, then there won’t be lots of lovely spending on important domestic policies such as social care. Theresa May has been so busy procrastinating on Brexit that her failure to make decisions on these policy areas has not attracted the level of attention it deserves. The social care green paper, for instance, has been pushed back by over a year. This isn’t as much to do with Brexit as ministers like to make out, by the way, but all the same it is

Charles Moore

The problem with Theresa May

I had forgotten, until I checked this week, that Theresa May timed the general election of June 2017 in order to have a mandate for the Brexit negotiations. They began ten days after the nation voted. She conveyed no sense, at the time, of how the election result had changed her situation. In her beginning is her end. Political leadership requires imagination. She has never displayed any. Why, for example, did she fly to Strasbourg on Monday night? She made the same mistake in December 2017 when she took a dawn flight to Brussels after making a hash of the Irish problem. The point of dramatically winging your way out

Ross Clark

The no-deal Brexit tariffs are nothing to be afraid of

What strange knots some tie themselves in over Brexit. The attitude of some of those opposed to Britain leaving the EU is this when it comes to free trade: when conducted with the EU, it is essential for our prosperity. But when conducted with any other country it is a dark threat to our very being. How else to explain the reaction of CBI director-general Carolyn Fairbairn to the publication of the Government’s proposed tariff rates, which would apply in the even of a no-deal Brexit. The new regime would see some tariffs imposed on EU goods which currently enter the country tariff-free – 18 per cent of EU imports by

Alex Massie

The Brexiteers have blown it | 13 March 2019

If, as Rod Liddle says, Brexit has been killed there is no shortage of suspects. 75 of them, in fact. That’s the number of Conservative MPs who voted against the Government in last night’s second – but not necessarily final – meaningful vote. They wanted Brexit and then, when they were given it, they decided it wasn’t the kind of Brexit they wanted after all. Fanaticism invariably devours its adherents and so it is with Brexit. The Brexiteers wanted the ball but once they had it they decided they did not actually want it after all. They had their chance and they blew it. All they had to do was

Tuesday

12 Mar 2019

Geoffrey Cox

“The backstop risk is unchanged”: Geoffrey Cox’s full legal advice

Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, has published his verdict on the EU’s concessions. He reminds us that in his last judgement, the backstop “could not be brought to an end in the absence of a subsequent [UK-EU] agreement. This would remain the case even if parties were still negotiating many years later, and even if the parties believed that talks have clearly broken down.” There is now a reduced risk of this, he says. But his final sentence makes clear that the risk remains and if talks do break down, “However, the legal risk remains unchanged that if through no such demonstrable failure of either party, but simply because of

Johannes de Jong

Why the EU is so keen for Theresa May’s Brexit deal to pass

In recent weeks, two big beasts in the European political arena pushed forward their respective ideas for the future of the European Union. France’s president Emmanuel Macron repeated his dream of a big EU. And the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer responded in kind with a vision of an EU that is larger than it is now but smaller than the EU ‘a la Macron’. In both visions, the reality of Brexit was conspicuously absent. The decision to ignore Brexit in these visions of the future EU is easily understood if one gets the updated ‘deal’ that Theresa May struck with the EU overnight. ‘This is it’,

Charles Day

The silence from Geoffrey Cox bodes ill for May’s deal

The loudest sound this morning is the silence from Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney-General. The test for Theresa May’s discussion with Brussels is whether it means the UK will be caught indefinitely in the backstop. And the person who decides this is Mr Cox. No10 misrepresented the nature of the backstop when it was signed: some (then) Cabinet members go further and say that they were lied to. Then No10’s own representation of the Withdrawal Agreement was contradicted by the Attorney-General. This is what led us to this point: No10 has, alas, proved that it cannot be trusted to interpret legal advice. Cox has proven that he can be trusted. Cox

Rod Liddle

Brexit is now dead

And that, my lovely friends, is it for Brexit. You kippers and ERGers who think we’ll leave with no deal, are deluded. They will not let it happen. They were never going to let it happen. Brexit has been killed by a Parliament which by a two-to-one majority never wanted it, despite what lip service they paid to respecting the will of the people. The liberal elite has won. I suspect it will be its last victory before it is expunged.

James Forsyth

Why we could be heading for a third vote on May’s Brexit deal

Late last night, there was a sense of optimism among ministers that the government’s revised deal might have a chance. But those hopes were crushed this morning by Geoffrey Cox’s blunt legal advice. With Cox declaring that the legal risk was unchanged, the DUP were never going to back the deal and that meant the bulk of the ERG wouldn’t either. In the end, the withdrawal agreement went down by 149 votes—at the worst end of expectations. May immediately declared that there would be a vote on no deal tomorrow, and it would be a free vote. May’s justification for this was the referendum precedent, but for the governing party

Robert Peston

We’re now heading for a no-deal Brexit – but not just yet

A member of the Cabinet uttered just one word to me about this latest humiliating defeat for the Prime Minister about her Brexit deal: “nightmare!”. Let’s put this nightmare into context. In January, the Prime Minister’s painstakingly negotiated Brexit plan was rejected by a record 230 votes, the worst defeat for a government ever. Tonight’s defeat by 149 votes is also huge by all measures. And let’s be clear, these are not defeats about rules and regulations for ice cream vans. They relate to the most important economic, security and foreign policy decision this country has taken for many decades. This is therefore without precedent in modern times as a

The Spectator

Full text: Theresa May reacts to her Brexit deal defeat

I profoundly regret the decision that this House has taken tonight. I continue to believe that by far the best outcome is that the UK leaves the EU in an orderly fashion with a deal, and that the deal we have negotiated is the best and indeed the only deal available. Mr Speaker, I would like to set out briefly how the Government means to proceed. Two weeks ago, I made a series of commitments from this despatch box regarding the steps we would take in the event that this House rejected the deal on offer. I stand by those commitments in full. Therefore, tonight we will table a motion

The Spectator

The full list of Tory MPs that backed May’s Brexit deal

Theresa May has suffered another thumping defeat on her Brexit deal. This time, she lost by a margin of 149. But she did manage to whittle down the number of Tory rebels significantly. In tonight’s vote, 235 of May’s fellow Conservative MPs backed her Brexit plan. Here is the full list of the Tory rebels who changed their minds to back May: David Amess, Bob Blackman, Fiona Bruce, Ben Bradley, Graham Brady, Maria Caulfield, Tracey Crouch, Philip Davies, David Davis, Nadine Dorries, Steve Double, Nigel Evans, David Evennett, Zac Goldsmith, Robert Halfon, Greg Hands, John Hayes, Greg Knight, John Lamont, Tim Loughton, Scott Mann, Stephen McPartland, Johnny Mercer, Stephen Metcalfe, Nigel Mills, Andrew Mitchell, Damien Moore, Matthew Offord, Mike Penning, Mark Pritchard, Will Quince, Julian Sturdy, Hugo Swire, Robert Syms, Derek Thomas, Martin Vickers, Giles Watling, Bill Wiggin. William Wragg And the other Tory MPs who again voted

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May’s Brexit deal defeated again in the Commons

Theresa May’s revised Brexit deal has been voted down decisively by MPs. The Prime Minister’s Withdrawal Agreement was defeated by 391 to 242 votes, a margin of 149 votes. May had said if her ‘improved’ deal did not pass, there was a risk of ‘no Brexit at all’. But while the number of Tory rebels was down on the first meaningful vote, which the Government lost by a margin of 230, it wasn’t enough for the PM’s deal to pass. May reacted to the defeat by promising a free vote in the Commons tomorrow on whether MPs would back a no-deal Brexit. On Thursday, May said that the Commons would vote

Steerpike

Boris Johnson: Why I won’t vote for Theresa May’s Brexit deal

Boris Johnson says he will still vote against Theresa May’s Brexit deal. Here is his verdict on the PM’s revised Withdrawal Agreement: I sincerely hoped that the Government would be able to make the wholly modest changes that this House urged them to make. And that there would be no risk that this country would find itself trapped in the backstop or no risk that we would lose our democratic right to make laws for this country, or pass them to a foreign entity for all time as we’re in danger of doing. But whatever the Government tried to do it has not I’m afraid succeeded. Now I congratulate the Prime

Steerpike

Corbyn backs no-deal Brexit

When it comes to Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn is still keeping his options open. But the same can’t be said of his brother. Piers Corbyn has taken a breather from tweeting about climate change to throw his weight behind a no-deal Brexit. The Labour leader’s older sibling wrote: ‘The threat of CrashOut catastrophe is nonsense’. ‘Nodeal OnlyDeal’, he added: Mr S. thinks it might be awkward in the Corbyn family if Jeremy does end up backing a second referendum…

Isabel Hardman

DUP confirms it won’t support May’s Brexit deal

The DUP has confirmed that it will be voting against Theresa May’s Brexit deal this evening. A party spokesman said that ‘sufficient progress has not been achieved at this time’ and that ‘it is clear that the risks remain that the UK would be unable to lawfully exit the backstop were it to be activated’. Along with the European Research Group’s recommendation to vote down the deal, this means that the Prime Minister’s strategy of trying to win over the DUP and the Brexiteers in her own party has failed. It means that she is facing a landslide defeat tonight. The Commons benches behind the Prime Minister as she is

Steerpike

Geoffrey Cox clashes with Channel 4’s Jon Snow

It’s here. It’s Brexit day, again. And Channel 4’s Jon Snow and Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney-General, have come to blows on Twitter. Snow tweeted the latest from his ‘lawyer contact’ this morning on what Cox’s verdict is on the Prime Minister’s verdict. It’s safe to say Cox was not impressed: Well, at least that’s cleared that up then. Mr S thinks Theresa May will be hoping that Cox isn’t quite so rude when it comes to him delivering the verdict on her Brexit deal…