Europe

Head of the IN campaign says wages will go up if we leave the EU

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/donaldtrumpsangryamerica/media.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth, Fraser Nelson & Isabel Hardman discuss the opening skirmishes of the EU referendum campaign” startat=540] Listen [/audioplayer] Stuart Rose will have to be added to the long list of British businessmen who have struggled to make the transition to politics. Rose, the Chairman of Britain in Europe, didn’t get off to the best of starts in this campaign when he told The Times that ‘“Nothing is going to happen if we come out of Europe in the first five years, probably. There will be absolutely no change’ a quote that was seized upon by the Out campaign who said it disproved all the dire warnings about

How the migrant crisis could get much worse

Angela Merkel gave a defiant interview last night in which she defended her handling of the refugee crisis. She declared, ‘I have no Plan B’—worryingly, I suspect this is true. But how much worse the refugee crisis could become worse is made clear in leaked minutes of a meeting between the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker. As Bloomberg columnist Marc Champion points out, Erdogan is determined to get far more out of the EU than the 3 billion Euros it is currently offering. He tells them that if the offer is for only 3 billion, the conversation might as well end there: “We

Can Cameron and Boris keep a lid on it?

David Cameron’s slap down of Boris Johnson on Monday was one of the most brutal, and personal, that I’ve seen in six and a half years of reporting on parliament. But, as I report in my Sun column today, Number 10 are now keen to calm things down. Indeed, even some of Cameron’s closest allies now concede that the tone he took with Boris on Monday was a mistake. I’m told that Cameron and Boris have been in contact and are now exchanging, dread word, ‘bantery’ texts. One well-placed source is clear that the ‘PM’s tone will be much more emollient from now on’. Though, given how irritated Cameron is

The European Parliament: a sword of Damocles hanging over Cameron

David Cameron had a tough time trying to convince his European counterparts at the European Council; but hopefully he will be up for seconds when he goes head-to-head with the European Parliament. He paid its Members a long overdue visit last week, but only met with a select few. He will have to do more than that if he wants to avoid more drama. There is nothing Members of the European Parliament hate more than being left out. Add to that being told what to do by a Member State government and you are serving them a very bitter cocktail. There is not an awful lot of respect as it

Rod Liddle

Why are children in Guernsey extolling Islam to their parents?

I have never been to the island of Guernsey. This is a large world and we have a finite amount of time on it and must make our decisions about where we visit based on necessarily limited information. We cannot know everything. I have never been to Japan, for example, because I do not wish to be crushed to death by a mass of jabbering humanity, nor take part in unpleasant sadomasochistic sex acts, nor watch people disembowelling themselves in order to affirm their masculinity. I realise that this is not all that Japan has to offer. There is also sushi, for example, and buttock-clenched politeness. I could get both

Why are so few big business leaders for remain?

How come so few big business leaders signed up to David Cameron’s letter in favour of remain? As the Daily Mail reported this morning: High street shops including Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Next and banks such as Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland did not put their names to the letter published today. It had been suggested that bosses of 80 of the FTSE 100 firms would sign the pro-Brussels letter, but in fact only 36 have done so. One would have thought big business leaders to be largely in favour of staying, since membership suits big best; it is not just that they are most likely to be involved in exports,

This referendum is now a battle between two visions of the future

George Osborne’s plan for this referendum was to turn it into a question of the future versus the past, for both the country and the Tory party. He wanted the voters to see the Out campaign as a bunch of people who wanted to take Britain back to a bygone era. Inside the Tory party, his aim was to have the talent and the ambition on the IN side with only old war horses and the passed over and bitter on the other side. But the events of the past 36 hours have blown this plan off course. Out now has one of the most popular politicians in the country

James Forsyth

Blow to Cameron as Boris backs Brexit

David Cameron used to always remind people who asked him about what Boris would do in the referendum that the London Mayor had never advocated Britain leaving the European Union. But tonight, Boris will do exactly that. He will become the highest profile politician to back Brexit. Boris’s decision shakes up this referendum campaign. The IN campaign have long seen a swing to IN among Tory voters as the key to them securing a decisive victory. They believed that Cameron and pretty much all the Tory party endorsing the deal would provide that. But they cautioned that if Boris went the other way, the Cameron effect would be pretty much

James Forsyth

Contrary to what Cameron and Osborne say, Gove hasn’t been an Outer for 30 years

David Cameron and George Osborne have responded to Michael Gove’s decision to campaign for Out by saying that he has wanted to leave the EU for thirty years. But as Vote Leave are pointing out, Gove has not been an Outer for that long. When he was a journalist, Gove was actually arguing that Britain should, ultimately, stay in the EU. In 1996, he wrote in The Times that ‘It is still in Britain’s interest to stay in the EU.’ So, why are Cameron and Osborne saying that Gove has been an Outer for thirty years? I suspect it is because they want to paint Gove’s belief that Britain should

What was said at the EU referendum Cabinet

At Cabinet this morning, every minister spoke in strict order of Cabinet seniority. This meant that Michael Gove was the first person to make the case for Out. I’m told that his argument to Cabinet was essentially the same as the hugely powerful statement he put out afterwards, which you can read in full here. The theme of the Cabinet discussion was, broadly, the trade-off between sovereignty and access to the free market. According to one of those present, where you fell on that question determined your position in the debate. One IN supporting Cabinet minister tells me that Oliver Letwin was the most persuasive speaker for that side of

James Forsyth

Exclusive: Sajid Javid to back staying in the EU

Sajid Javid will campaign for Britain to stay in the EU. The Business Secretary’s decision is a blow to the Leave camp which had been hopefully of recruiting him; Javid had spoken in the past of how he was ‘not afraid’ of Britain leaving the EU as it ‘would open up opportunities’. Senior figures on the Leave side had hoped that Javid would help them persuade voters that quitting the EU would not be bad for business. Those familiar with the Business Secretary’s thinking say that what has swung Javid to IN is his sense that it is just too risky for Britain to leave right now given the parlous

James Forsyth

Will more than half a dozen Cabinet Ministers back Brexit?

The Cabinet convenes this morning at 10am with, at least, six of those present set to back Out. The most intriguing of these Outers is Michael Gove. Gove is exceptionally close to Cameron and Osborne both politically and personally. He is one of the intellectual driving forces behind the Tory modernising project. But he is unable to back staying in the EU on these terms. Cameron claimed in his press conference last night that Gove had been an Outer for 30 years. I’m not sure that’s right. Friends say it was the experience of being a minister and finding out how much of government was just following what Brussels wanted

The UK’s Global Engagement Begins in Europe

The advocates of Brexit like to paint an optimistic picture of a post-EU Britain as an active, globally engaged power. ‘Who has the parochial mindset here,’ asks Dan Hannan, ‘those who want a global role of the United Kingdom, or those who think that our role must be mediated by Federica Mogherini, the EU’s Foreign Minister?’ Eurosceptics rarely outline the details of the UK that they have in mind. At most, they say that once the UK leaves, the British government could negotiate free-trade agreements with countries overseas – most notably those in the Commonwealth. But there is much more to international engagement than trade. For a campaign that takes

David Cameron cancels Friday night Cabinet

David Cameron had hoped to agree a deal today, return from Brussels this evening, hold a special Cabinet meeting and then start the referendum campaign. So much for that. We have news from the European Council summit, and it’s not about the eating arrangements, apparently (though for those on the edge of their seats about what time ‘breakfast’ will be, it’s currently planned for 8pm). Cameron has cancelled the Cabinet meeting A Number 10 source said: ‘The Council are planning to reconvene at 8pm. Before then, the Prime Minister is likely to have a number of further bilaterals including with the Danish PM, the Czech PM and the Dutch PM. And

Letters | 18 February 2016

Governmental ignorance Sir: Your leading article (13 February) blames junior doctors for playing with lives in their dispute; but what alternative do they have when confronted with the monumental ignorance of our present government (and the last, and the one before that, for that matter)? The NHS, when it started, was propped up by the amazing dedication of the post-war generation and then the baby-boomers. Even so, by the 1960s it was dependent on cheap foreign labour. If people want a first-class service they have to pay for it. It is about time somebody made our government aware of the facts of life — and the junior doctors seem to have

The EU must change

David Cameron’s attempt to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership has served as a powerful reminder of the case for leaving. The EU is designed in such a way that almost no sensible proposal can be passed. If one member state has a good idea, the other 27 members demand a price for approving it, or they demand concessions until it is completely watered down. If the leader of a country protests, the response is clear: What are you going to do? Walk away? You wouldn’t dare. The EU’s power-mongering has a cost. The euro has hideously distorted the economies of the member states that adopted it, and the abolition of so

Which Tory MPs back Brexit, who doesn’t and who is still on the fence?

David Cameron has claimed his deal with the EU gives Britain ‘special status’. The PM has also said Brexit would be a ‘leap in the dark’ but with the high-profile loss of Michael Gove and Boris Johnson to the out campaign, it seems that not all Conservative MPs agree with him. Who are the other Tories who have turned their back on the PM? And which of David Cameron’s party colleagues have voiced their approval for staying in the EU? Here The Spectator has put together a list of every Conservative MP – showing who is in, out, or yet to make up their mind about the big question of Europe. So

Which way will Gove go?

If all goes according to David Cameron’s plan, he’ll have his EU deal by this time next week. But Downing Street still can’t be sure of which Tory heavyweights will be with Cameron come the referendum campaign, and which won’t. Even more than Boris Johnson, Michael Gove is causing Downing Street angst. As I report in The Sun today, Gove is ‘definitely wobbling’ according to one Downing Street source. Downing Street think the chances of him backing Out have increased significantly in the last 10 days or so. Gove himself has been telling people that he won’t make a decision until the deal is done. But those around him are

Introducing the Timothy Garton Ash prize for European writing

Events in Europe are unfolding rapidly, and we at The Spectator are looking for writers living abroad who would be interested in contributing occasionally to the magazine and our website. So we’re setting up a writing competition: the Timothy Garton Ash prize for European writing. It will go to the best original essay from any country in Europe, which will be published both in the magazine and online. In 1978, Alexander Chancellor was looking for someone to cover events in Europe – someone actually living out there, rather than the many eloquent writers in London who knew what these countries were like years ago. Things were changing too fast, Alexander thought: The Spectator

Turkey can’t cope. Can we?

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thenextrefugeecrisis/media.mp3″ title=”Laura Pitel and Migration Watch’s Alanna Thomas discuss the second migrant crisis”] Listen [/audioplayer]In Istanbul, signs of the Syrian influx are everywhere. Syrian mothers sit on pavements clutching babies wrapped in blankets; children from Homs, Syria’s most completely devastated city, push their way through packed tram carriages begging for coins. Arabic adverts offer rooms for rent. It’s almost inconceivable how many Syrians Turkey has taken in as refugees — around 2.5 million of them so far. That’s almost three times the number who have sought refuge in Europe. And while the Turks are hospitable, Turkey has more than any country should bear. Yet still more refugees arrive. This