Brexit

The EU is overplaying its hand on Northern Ireland

The EU’s decision to take control of the vaccine programme was hardly a roaring success. The eurozone’s economy remains stuck in recession. And the EU’s foreign policy is a mess, as events in Belarus have just made clear.  Still, despite the evidence that she isn’t very good at managing anything, no one can argue that the European Union’s president Ursula von der Leyen lacks self-confidence. Last night, she made it clear there could be no possible compromise over the Northern Ireland protocol. The trouble is that she could easily bring the whole trade deal between the EU and the UK crashing down. As so often, the EU is overplaying its

Bloc buster: David Frost on Brexit, Barnier and the backstop

In an eyrie at the top of the Cabinet Office sits David Frost, Boris Johnson’s former Brexit negotiator who is now the cabinet minister responsible for handling the European Union. His office has the genial feel of a don’s study — there’s a book of Anglo-Saxon verse on his table alongside one of Greek poetry — yet mention Frost’s name to even the most mild-mannered EU diplomats and they begin to fume. In an effort to understand the apparent mismatch, I ask Frost if he feels the need to be aggressive in negotiations. ‘I hope not,’ he replies. But he does admit that he did feel that way when he

The Australian trade deal is about more than just trade

What happens with an Australia trade deal won’t just reveal how serious this country is about free trade but also how committed it is to helping democratic countries stand up to China. China is Australia’s largest trading partner but since Australia called for an independent inquiry into the origins of coronavirus, Australian-Chinese relations have severely deteriorated. Beijing is now trying to use this economic relationship to get Canberra to fall into line.  China has imposed huge tariffs on Australian barley and on wine for the next five years, while technical reasons have been found to bar most Australian timber and beef from the country. If in these circumstances the UK failed

Boris must stand up to farmers – and back the Australia trade deal

Farms will be devastated. The countryside will be ruined. And we will all be forced to eat weird food that will probably kill us. As the government tries to finalise a free trade deal with Australia, there are already reports of fierce rows over the future of agriculture played out against a backdrop of a angry backlash from the farming lobby.  It’s time for the government so face up to these critics. True, farming is not crucial to the future of the British economy, and neither, as it happens, is trade with Australia. But the principle is important – and if the UK doesn’t embrace free trade then leaving the EU

Will the DUP’s Edwin Poots win his war on the Northern Ireland protocol?

What to make of the triumph of Edwin Poots, the new leader of the Democratic Unionist party, who defeated the party’s Westminster leader Jeffrey Donaldson by 19 votes to 17 in its first ever leadership election? Poots’ victory marks for some the definitive end of the party’s moderate turn instituted by Peter Robinson in 2008. Those not au fait with the intricacies of the DUP may find the suggestion of moderation risible. But Robinson – and indeed his own successor, Arlene Foster – recognised that for unionism to succeed, a more open approach was needed. While the execution of that strategy was often lacking, the intent was there. For many within

What Europe could learn from Britain’s new migration system

While the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has no formal role in devising the bloc’s immigration policy, his words this week have turned much of the Brexit debate on its head. In an interview on French television, he said that France should suspend non-EU immigration for three to five years — with the exception of students and refugees — and that the EU needed to toughen external borders that have become a ‘sieve’. Had those words come from the mouth of Nigel Farage, he would have been excoriated, not least by Barnier himself. How can any country (let alone a continent) manage in the modern world while shutting

Can the DUP survive?

A 36-person strong electorate will meet in Belfast this Friday to elect Arlene Foster’s replacement as leader of the Democratic Unionist party.  The choice facing the assembled ranks of the party’s MPs and members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) is, amusingly, between two men who share the same office in Lisburn: the Lagan Valley MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and Edwin Poots, the Stormont agriculture minister. Such is the DUP way, the two candidates are under orders not to speak to the media or undertake any form of public-facing promotional activity for the duration of the contest. However, a document sent by Poots to his colleagues setting out his vision for the

Macron is playing politics in the Channel

The stand-off between France and Britain has escalated into something altogether more serious. Yesterday, the French maritime minister called for Jersey’s electricity supply to be cut off in response to a dispute over fishing rights. Egged on by French officials, around 80 boats began blockading the port of St Helier this morning in a move that is reminiscent of Ursula von der Leyen’s aborted plans for a hard Irish border to stop the flow of vaccines into the UK. Now there are scenes of British Navy vessels approaching the fishing boats as French ships chart a course for the Channel island. Some on the Continent are claiming that the stand-off

Nick Tyrone

Why are the Lib Dems siding with France in the Jersey crisis?

The situation in Jersey is rapidly spiralling out of control and dominating the headlines. But once again, the Lib Dems have surpassed themselves in responding terribly to a crisis that offered them a chance to win over voters. After a predictable post-Brexit mix-up on fishing rights in the Channel, France’s maritime minister Annick Girardin hit back. Girardin threatened to pull the plug on Jersey’s energy supply – a worrying threat given the island gets 95 per cent of its power from the continent. This was a ridiculous, over-the-top response to what has been happening as the new fishing regime takes effect. Brexit was a situation that was always going to require a measure of diplomacy

Katy Balls

Why Boris could benefit from the Jersey fishing dispute

It’s polling day for the local elections but the focus of the government is on Jersey, where a row has broken out over post-Brexit fishing rights. After 80 French boats gathered at St Helier in protest over new licences required for fishing there, the UK hit back by sending two British naval patrol vessels as a precautionary measure. Now the French government has sent naval ships of its own and a war of words is underway between the two sides. The European Commission has called for calm but the situation remains unstable to say the least France’s Sea Minister Annick Girardin was the first to up the ante – suggesting

Michel Barnier’s Brexit diary shows he needs a lesson in diplomacy

David Davis was ‘truculent’. Dominic Raab was ‘almost messianic’. Theresa May was ‘rigid. While Boris Johnson kept asking to borrow a tenner and whether it would be okay if Carrie joined the meeting.  Okay, I made that last one up, but the rest are among the startling revelations contained in Michel Barnier’s Brexit diary, published in France this week, and due to come out in the UK in the autumn.  Why is Barnier publishing a diary at all? After all, shouldn’t the negotiations have remained confidential? From the extracts so far, ‘The Great Illusion’, to give it is full-title, seems to be fairly standard Europhile stuff. Indeed, if you are

Why the Lib Dems could soon cause trouble for Boris

Much of the focus when it comes to ‘Super Thursday’ centres on whether or not the Tories can pull off an electoral coup by snatching Hartlepool from Labour.  But the Lib Dems’ role in the drama has largely gone unnoticed – and a good result for Ed Davey’s party could spell the start of trouble for Boris Johnson. Labour needs to hold onto Hartlepool. It’s really that simple. To lose the seat, particularly to a Conservative party that has been in power for eleven years, would be devastating. Starmer is also under pressure in the local elections. To put this into perspective, Labour lost around 400 seats in the areas being contested

Dominic Cummings’s Bismarck complex

‘One’s enemies one can count on — but one’s friends!’ Otto von Bismarck quotes have mostly gone out of fashion since the middle of the last century. But perhaps not as far as Dominic Cummings is concerned.  Cummings describes Germany’s first chancellor — and the man responsible for the country’s unification in 1871 — as a ‘monster’. He says in his 2017 blog that ‘the world would have been better if one of the assassination attempts had succeeded’. But it is clear that Cummings seeks inspiration from the Iron Chancellor for his own political doings. When Cummings writes that Bismarck ‘understood fundamental questions better than others’, it’s hard not to think that he

Who would want to replace Arlene Foster?

Arlene Foster has announced that she will be standing down as DUP leader on the 28 May and First Minister of Northern Ireland at the end of June, bowing to the inevitable after the arithmetic suggested that 80 per cent of her Stormont and Westminster colleagues were set against her leadership continuing.  This will be welcomed by those who in recent days orchestrated manoeuvres against her; Foster staging a defiant last stand had the potential to turn the leadership election poisonous very quickly, which was the last thing the embattled party needs. Who would honestly want to replace Foster now, such is the troubling in-tray she is handing over to her successor?

It’s remarkable that Arlene Foster lasted this long

Arlene Foster’s spell as leader of the Democratic Unionist party is over. Today, Foster announced that she is stepping down as party leader on 28 May, and resigning her position as First Minister by the end of June. Her resignation came after a letter, signed by three quarters of the party’s MLAs alongside some MPs, was submitted to its chair Lord Morrow calling for her departure. In what is the most dramatic case of unionist infighting since Foster herself helped destabilise David Trimble’s leadership of the Ulster Unionists in the early 2000s, moves are also afoot to remove her erstwhile deputy Nigel Dodds. Several of her most senior advisers, including the party’s chief

Vince Cable: on Brexit and the case for working with Beijing

Sir Vince Cable is talking about Brexit and damaged bicycle wheels. ‘The metaphor I like to use when talking about the economic consequences of Brexit is a slow puncture,’ the 77-year-old explains from his home in Twickenham, South West London. ‘Because effectively we’re losing access to Britain’s largest market of goods and services.’ ‘I was initially encouraged that Brexit campaigners wanted to pursue an open and global Britain,’ he says. ‘And I think that’s absolutely right because that is very much part of the old free trade tradition… But we are now in a world which is probably going in the opposite direction. And I fear that Britain now stands

Can Cummings really hurt Teflon Boris?

Seldom have so many keyboard warriors and political activists professed so much dissatisfaction towards the government of the day. For some left-wing bloggers and tweeters, the number one cause of outrage of the moment is so-called ‘Tory sleaze’, a subject to be added to an already formidably long list of gripes towards Boris Johnson that includes Brexit, the claim that Britain is not very racist and his alleged unforgivable bungling of the Covid crisis. On the right, there is now, if anything, an even wider array of issues igniting fury towards the Prime Minister. These range from the ongoing suspensions of normal civil liberties to an allegedly ‘ruinous’ green agenda; from

Alan Duncan rants about ‘idiot’ parliamentary colleagues and Britain’s waning influence

As a budding political apparatchik, my first job out of university was as a junior parliamentary assistant to Alan Duncan MP. Working for him was never taxing because it was never boring. Nicknamed ‘Hunky Dunky’, he was well known in the Tory fraternity. Too young to be a grandee and too old to be a rising star, he occupied a special space in the parliamentary party, never part of a clique yet consistently present during his 27 years in parliament. We’d often remark — to his annoyance — that he was the Chips Channon of his generation, since both often ended up on the wrong side of the winning team.

The Brexit bounce is underway

The collapse in UK-EU trade after 1 January was widely reported. What has not been reported nearly as much is that UK exports have made a near-complete recovery. They were up 46.6 per cent in February after falling by 42 per cent in January. Imports are not there yet. They were up 7.3 per cent in February after a fall of 29.7 per cent in January. The one prediction I am happy to make is that they will recover too.  What these and other numbers are telling us is that even this bit of the Brexit scare stories will not come true. If you look at the latest IMF data

Juncker’s Brexit delusion

Regrets? It turns out he has a few. The former president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker does not seem too bothered by the EU’s miserable growth rate during his time in office, its geopolitical marginalisation, or indeed the growing power of corporate lobbyists in Brussels. But there is one thing that makes him at least a little sad. Not deploying the formidable force of his personality to swing the British referendum behind staying in the EU. Juncker now reckons the former PM’s judgement was a couple of bottles short of a full case In an interview this week, Juncker revealed that David Cameron told him to keep out of