Theresa may

At Conservative party conference next week, expect a lot of soul-searching over what exactly went wrong for the Tories in the snap election. Happily, the Prime Minister has kicked proceedings off early – telling the House magazine that the big problem was that the Tories just weren’t ready for an early election: ‘I think the other issue was the need to have, in a sense, a less centralised campaign. You obviously need to have a central focus in the campaign. But I think that an awful lot of people out there in the party worked hard on the ground, and there is a feeling that there wasn’t the ability to

Even if Germany had Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, Angela Merkel would be struggling this morning to form a government. With 33 per cent of the vote, her Christian Democrat and Christian Social alliance has suffered its weakest showing in 68 years – tempered only by the equal failure of the socialists. It might have been a moment for Emmanuel Macron to seize the crown of de facto leader of Europe were it not that he, too, suffered a lower-profile though no less significant electoral reversal over the weekend – in Senate elections the La Republique En Marche party won only 23 of the 171 seats up for grabs. With his

Following months of tortured negotiation between the UK and the EU, Theresa May delivered her speech in Florence yesterday in an attempt to break the Brexit deadlock. Mrs May proposed a two-year transition period during which Britain would retain its access to the single market and confirmed that the UK Government will honour its commitments to the EU budget. She also spoke of the ‘shared challenges and opportunities’ that face the UK and the EU in a bid to build consensus. Here’s how Europe’s press reacted to the long-awaited speech. France France’s centre-left daily, Le Monde, agrees with Theresa May that Brexit negotiations can be extended beyond March 2019, however, points

Theresa May’s speech in Florence set out more detail on the government’s position on transition. But it did not answer the question of what the UK’s final relationship with the EU should be, and how the UK thinks regulatory divergence between it and the EU should be managed. May’s transition proposal, though she still prefers the term implementation period, would see the UK continue to obey all EU rules and regulations and accept free movement, albeit with registrations of new arrivals. In effect, Britain would be staying in the EU but as a non-voting member. She suggested that this transition last two years. But she also said it should go

After concerns about the Foreign Secretary’s job security bumped Vince Cable’s keynote leader’s speech at Lib Dem conference off the news agenda yesterday, a sense of stability has been restored to Cabinet. Boris Johnson has told hacks in New York that he is not going anywhere – likening Cabinet harmony to ‘a nest of singing birds’. The message from Downing Street, too, is one of quiet confidence that Johnson won’t be departing the frontbench – at least, not this weekend. This suggests two things. Firstly, that May’s Florence speech won’t be as drastic as had first been thought. Secondly, Johnson is coming round to the idea of payments to Brussels continuing during a transition period.

Boris Johnson has come in for plenty of criticism since setting out his Brexit blueprint in a 4,000 word article in the Daily Telegraph. But the Sun says the Foreign Secretary has done the PM a favour in speaking up for ‘the 52 per cent who voted Leave and the many more won over since’. ‘Theresa May must listen’ up, the paper says – and she should also ‘ignore the siren calls from Cabinet Remainers’ who want to reverse the referendum result. The attacks levelled at Boris are ‘designed solely to discredit him and trash the optimistic vision’ of Brexit he has set out. Instead of getting angry at Boris, the

The Cabinet remains divided on one of the most fundamental Brexit questions. Everyone in the Cabinet does accept that Britain is leaving not just the EU but the single market too. But there remains a split over whether Britain should be aiming for an EEA minus deal with the EU or a CETA plus one. This might sound techy but it is fundamental to Britain’s future. Free movement makes it a political non-starter for Britain to stay in the single market. However, several of the most senior members of the Cabinet, backed by the institutional Treasury, think that Britain should stay as closely aligned to the single market as possible.