Eu

Brexit has been as bad as any surge in washing away hitherto strong foundations. I am talking about friendships. I have never known the like. To be called a racist, a ‘little Englander’ and worse was bad enough, but to have people one has long known and liked say they could no longer be friends with ‘someone like you’ was very shocking. My father was a Mass-going Roman Catholic, a Labour voter and a union shop steward. My mother was a church-going Anglican and lifelong Conservative. They were married for 33 years and although their union was alarmingly fiery, they made a pact from the beginning that they would never

The government has no majority in the House of Lords and a majority of peers were pro-Remain. But despite this, the Article 50 Bill will get through the Lords I argue in The Sun this morning. Why, because the reason that we still have an unelected chamber in the 21st century is that the House of Lords has a strong self-preservation instinct: it knows its limits. If the Lords were to try and block something that had been backed in a referendum and had passed the Commons with a majority of 372, then it would be endangering its very existence. Indeed, I understand that the Labour front bench have already

Theresa May’s Brexit timetable is on track after MPs overwhelming backed the Government’s Article 50 bill in the Commons last night. Not everyone is happy with the role that Parliament has played so far in holding ministers’ feet to the fire over Brexit though. In its editorial this morning, the Guardian says MPs failed their first test: ‘Too many MPs genuflected’ to the referendum outcome – a result which the paper describes as one of the worst political decisions in the UK since the second world war. It seems as though the referendum took away Parliament’s power – and not even the ‘heroic efforts’ of Gina Miller in winning her

The drink will be flowing in the government whips’ office tonight. For the Brexit Bill has passed through the Commons unamended and with an absolutely thumping majority at third reading of 372. This means that a clean bill will go to the House of Lords. This will strengthen the government’s hand there as peers will be more reluctant to make changes to a clean bill and one that has passed the Commons with such a large majority. Despite all the talk of knife-edge votes, the government’s majorities tonight were pretty comfortable—30 or above on all the amendments. In part, this was because of the government conceding just enough—the ‘Dear Colleague’

Given Theresa May’s largely meaningless ‘Brexit means Brexit’ refrain, any new pronouncement on Britain’s departure from the EU is treated like gold dust. But Keir Starmer fell into the trap of thinking Brexit minister David Jones’ opening remarks today had offered up a bigger morsel than they actually had. Jones confirmed, as Theresa May has already made clear, that Parliament will vote on the Brexit deal. He said, too, that the vote would cover the future trading relationship between Britain and the EU, which had not previously been known. And the Commons was also told some more details on the timing of the vote, which will come, Jones confirmed, before

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Parliament must have its say on Brexit, it seems MPs are determined to make the most of it. After last week’s mammoth debate, today’s session on amendments to the Government’s White Paper will drag on until the early hours of tomorrow morning. It’s expected to finish up at around 1am – keeping Brexit aficionados, as well as MPs from all sides and the Government busy. But what will they be discussing? Here’s the Spectator’s guide to tonight’s Brexit session: After Theresa May’s Commons statement on the European Council meeting, tonight’s Commons session will essentially split into two parts. The first, expected to

‘A Bill to confer power on the prime minister to notify, under Article 50(2)…’. When it comes to the House of Lords, some of those trying to amend or delay the bill will be paid pensioners of the European Commission. Peers are obliged to declare any interest that ‘might be thought by a reasonable member of the public’ to influence the way they discharge their parliamentary duties — unless it is an EU pension. In 2007, a Lords subcommittee said that because their contracts oblige them to support the EU, an EC pensioner who made ‘intemperate criticism of the commission’ would have contravened their obligations under the Treaty of Rome

The last time Theresa May met with EU leaders en masse, she was caught on camera being shunned by her European counterparts. At today’s Malta EU summit, the Prime Minister managed to avoid any lonesome moments. On the walkabout she was seen with Angela Merkel, but then a planned bilateral meeting between the two was cancelled on the grounds that they discussed all they need to discuss. The Prime Minister struggled when it came to selling her new friend President Trump to the 27 EU leaders. Asked if May could act as a ‘bridge’ between the EU and Trump’s administration, Francois Hollande rebuffed the suggestion: ‘It is not about asking

MPs will finally vote tonight on the triggering of Article 50, and for wavering Parliamentarians, the Sun has some advice. It says that yesterday’s debate was a ‘marathon of Brexit whingeing’ which saw MPs recycle ‘reheated Project Fear doom-mongering’. Instead, they should listen to their colleague Tory MP Julian Lewis, whose contribution consisted of just nine words: ‘The people have decided. I’m going to vote accordingly’. ‘That is now all it boils down to,’ the Sun says. The Daily Telegraph is more optimistic about Parliament’s contribution to the Brexit debate. It says that yesterday’s marathon session, which ended at around midnight, was one of those rare moments where a House

The SNP appears to be on the verge of changing one of its core beliefs – full membership of the European Union. Senior party figures have revealed, in a piece in the Times today, that there is a desire in the higher echelons of the SNP to ditch this long-standing tenet of party policy. Instead, they want the party to adopt a Norway-style model. This would see an independent Scotland outside the EU but inside the single market, after Brexit. Scotland could then join the EU at a later date, if it wished to do so but it would not immediately join the back of the queue for EU membership,

Theresa May’s team will be basking this morning in the write-ups of her successful visit to Washington. As I say in The Sun this morning, the big prize for her is a US / UK free trade deal. Government ministers think that, given the political will on both sides, the deal could be negotiated in just eight months. There is also confidence in Whitehall that the US will be prepared to grant an exemption for public services which would ‘protect’ the NHS. This should do much to reduce the intensity of the opposition to the deal. Trump’s protectionist rhetoric is often cited as a reason why a US / UK

On Thursday afternoon, huge numbers of ministerial Range Rovers swept into Parliament after government whips got whiff of an SNP plot to mess with the government’s Brexit plans. Believing the SNP were planning to call for a last-minute vote on next week’s business involving the Brexit bill, Tory MPs came back to make up the numbers. In the end, the ambush failed to materialise but the incident is a sign of the tactics to come now that Brexit has entered its parliamentary phase. The government bill, which contains just two clauses and is 137 words long, states that its aim is to ‘confer power on the prime minister to notify,