James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
One consequence of David Cameron’s refusal to take part in any ‘Blue on Blue’ debates is that he and Michael Gove are appearing several days apart on BBC Question Time. Tonight, it was Gove’s turn to face the studio audience. In reply to the first question, Gove made clear that—in the event of Britain voting
The last PMQS before the EU referendum will not live long in the memory, the Commons did not rise to the occasion. David Cameron was determined to try and keep his broad Remain coalition together. But Jeremy Corbyn was less than helpful to Cameron. Corbyn said that Labour would oppose any post-Brexit austerity Budget, rather
The In campaign believe that they win when the referendum debate is focused on the economy. So, today George Osborne and Alistair Darling are outlining a deliberately provocative post-Brexit emergency Budget. It is stuffed full of horrors: a 2p rise in the basic rate of income tax, a 3p rise in the higher rate and
All sides of the Remain campaign are turning their fire on Boris Johnson at the moment. But these attacks are, I argue in The Sun today, a mistake by the Remainers. First, it makes Boris, the most popular politician in the country, the face of the Out campaign when the IN campaign’s strategic aim is
Sometimes you sense that Nigel Farage is keen to create controversy, to stir things up. But tonight in his interview with Andrew Neil, Farage seemed keen to do the opposite; turning in a restrained performance. When Andrew Neil asked what net migration would be post-Brexit, Farage replied that ‘it would be up to us’. He
The Spectator Podcast Christopher Meyer, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the first 100 days of Brexit At 5.15 a.m. on Friday 24 June 2016, David Cameron calls Michael Gove and concedes defeat in the EU referendum. The conversation is brief. With nearly all the results in, it is clear that Remain cannot overturn Leave’s
PODCAST: Listen to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss George Osborne’s performance: In a feisty interview with Andrew Neil, George Osborne has just declared that Turkey is not going to become a member of the EU. Osborne said that ‘Turkey has gone backwards’ since 2010 when David Cameron voiced his enthusiastic support for it joining
With the EU referendum just weeks away, Jeremy Corbyn is now trying to exploit Tory divisions over the issue. At PMQs today, he invited Cameron to attack both Priti Patel and Michael Gove. The Labour leader also criticised the whole decision to suspend collective responsibility. Cameron, aware of how much he needs Labour’s help between
The first of the BBC’s series of prime-time EU referendum events took place this evening, with Andrew Neil interviewing Hilary Benn. The programme highlighted both the uneasy relationship between Benn and his leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Remain campaign’s difficulty in dealing with the immigration issue. Andrew Neil began by putting to Hilary Benn a
Vote Leave feel that they now have the momentum in this campaign. The three polls out today all have them ahead. Inside the Leave camp, they think that it is their focus on the possibility of Turkey becoming an EU member that is, in part, responsible for this apparent shift in their favour. So, in
The Leave campaign have had their best week of the campaign this week. After months of being battered by the Whitehall machine, they’ve taken advantage of purdah silencing government departments to get themselves onto the front foot. As I write in The Sun this morning, even IN supporting Cabinet Ministers admit that Leave have had a good
It was Michael Gove’s turn in the Sky hot-seat tonight and he came determined to make the democratic case for Brexit. In the initial exchanges, Faisal Islam went after Gove hard on the question of how many economists, international institutions and countries back Britain leaving the EU. Islam pushed Gove to name 11 economists who
In a feisty interview with Faisal Islam, David Cameron defended his pledge to cut immigration to the tens of thousands but wouldn’t put a date on when he would achieve it. Cameron argued that when the Eurozone economy recovered, he might be able to meet it. Now, this isn’t realistic. The problems with the Eurozone
Complaining about the EU referendum campaign has become an integral part of the referendum; even Delia Smith has got in on the act. But politicians on both sides who pretend that the choice is simple, despite having agonised over it themselves for years, are only partly to blame for the dire state of the debate.
This EU referendum is a particularly difficult contest to poll and after the general election we all should be wary of treating them as gospel. But there’s no getting away from the fact that the mood in Westminster—and on the two campaigns—is heavily influenced by the polls. The recent good numbers for Leave have put
The IN campaign’s plan for victory in this EU referendum is relatively simple. ‘Do you want the status quo or the riskt alternative?’, is how one Cameron ally sums it up. To date, Remain—aided by the various government dossiers—have been pretty effective at pushing this message. That is why they are ahead in the polls.
If you ask most people if they wanted to win £50 million, the answer would be: where do I sign up? That’s why Vote Leave has launched a competition this morning (here’ the link to enter) offering £50 million to anyone who can correctly predict the result of every game in this summer’s European football
The Lincoln-Douglas debate it was not, but we have just had the first prime time TV debate of this EU referendum. With Alex Salmond and Alan Johnson for In and Liam Fox and the UKIP MEP Diane James for Out speaking to an audience of 18 to 29 year olds in Glasgow. Many in the
The one thing that can be said with certainty about what will happen at Westminster post-referendum is that David Cameron will find governing even harder than he does now. His majority is already the thinnest of blue lines and opposition from Tory backbenchers has already forced the government to u-turn on a host of policies.
Westminster has a tendency to get ahead of itself. MPs want to discuss the aftermath of an event long before it has happened. They play never-ending games of ‘What if?’ At the moment, the political class cannot stop discussing, in great detail, what the post-EU referendum political landscape will look like. The speculation is, in