Robert Peston is Political Editor of ITV News and host of the weekly political discussion show Peston. His articles originally appeared on his ITV News blog.
Nigel Farage says his decision not to run in Tory-held seats, but to contest Labour ones, eliminates the risk that there will be another referendum to decide whether we quit the EU. This is nonsense. It is helpful to Boris Johnson – who like Farage sees a referendum as pure poison – that the Brexit
Nicola Sturgeon says she wants to form a “progressive alliance” after the election to evict Boris Johnson from 10 Downing Street – which in practice means an arrangement with Labour to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister (this could be a formal coalition though Sturgeon told me she would prefer a less constraining arrangement). And she
The two most important speeches to date of the election campaign have been made by the Chancellor and Shadow Chancellor, Sajid Javid and John McDonnell, and not by their respective leaders. And it is just possible these will still be the most important speeches in five weeks time, on polling day. Because they set out
The cliche, from my memory already creaking under the political strain, is that oppositions never win elections, governments lose them. Well this election is only a few hours old and Boris Johnson and his team – who let’s not forget – have been gagging for this election for months are doing a spectacular job of mucking it
‘It’s going to be fun’. Thus a beaming Jeremy Corbyn announced that he had decided his condition for a general election had been met, namely that there won’t be a no-deal Brexit on October 31. And so he fired the starting gun on six weeks of campaigning before a polling day (probably) of December 12.
The Scottish National Party and Lib Dems have joined forces to attempt to force a general election in early December, but on a different timetable from that wanted by Boris Johnson and without any further push to see Johnson’s Brexit deal approved by MPs. The Westminster leaders of the two parties, Ian Blackford and Jo
Last night I took a short nap and had the strangest dream. In it, the Tory prime minister made clear that unless the opposition allows him to have a general election on 12 December his government would go on strike. The legislation to implement the Brexit deal he cherishes would be put on hold. The
In our house, the biggest source of tension is that I think there is an important difference between deferring a decision — ‘Do we need carpet on the stairs?’ — and making one. Charlotte argues that ‘Inaction is a choice; not choosing is a choice.’ One that can have consequences, she insists. Like when the
The important vote today will be on the timetable, or programme motion, for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the law that must pass before Brexit. The government wants it on the statute book by 31 October. Labour will try to humiliate the PM by forcing a delay. One minister tells me that the programme motion is
The Prime Minister will today send, but not sign, a letter requesting a Brexit delay till January 31 2020, and will simultaneously tell EU leaders that Parliament wants the delay, not him or his government. This will put him in all-out conflict with MPs, who have ordered him to ask EU leaders for a three-month Brexit
Here are the important points about today’s emergency vote on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal – which turned into a vote on whether the Prime Minister should write to the EU requesting a three-month Brexit delay. First, Johnson would have won if Northern Ireland’s ten DUP, his supposed partners in government, had not voted against him. Johnson has paid
There is a magnificent paradox – the Taj Mahal of paradoxes, let’s hope NOT the RMS Titanic of paradoxes – in the opposition of Northern Ireland’s DUP to Boris Johnson’s Brexit. Johnson’s replacement to the backstop, by design, keeps the province much more closely aligned with the tax and business rules of the EU than
The Saturday vote on Boris Johnson’s deal will be closer than people think. Around 18 or 19 of the Tory rebel exiles will vote for it, subject to a Letwin-ish amendment that the Benn Act applies until the whole of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill is law. Boris Johnson will see that amendment as holding the
This I think is important. There may be an agreement between Brussels and London negotiators on a deal. But no detailed text has yet been shared with the 27 EU leaders and their respective governments – so, it looks way too late for EU leaders to endorse a formal Brexit deal with Boris Johnson at
We should know on Wednesday night whether Boris Johnson has his Brexit deal proper, or whether he has an outline deal that will require a few more weeks of technical talks, or whether the gap is unbridgeable. Why? Because Donald Tusk has made it clear there will be no serious negotiations at the EU council
This is more an election manifesto launch than a conventional Queen’s Speech, because Boris Johnson simply does not have the numbers in the Commons to legislate for all – or any – of the measures announced today. At the risk of being sexist and aide-ist, the legislative programme shows the strong influence on the PM of the
I pass on, with little confidence or real understanding, that Boris Johnson seems to believe that Leo Varadkar and Dublin have lessened their objections of principle to his Brexit offer. Maybe both sides are moving in a significant way. We’ll see. What I should point out however is that if the negotiations were to collapse this weekend, that would
This morning when Angela Merkel told Boris Johnson his Brexit offer did not provide the requisite confidence that the border on the island of Ireland would be kept open while preserving the integrity of the EU’s single market, it looked as though any Brexit deal was dead – and that the Prime Minister would therefore
This feels very big: Boris Johnson spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at 8am this morning, and according to a Downing Street source, she told the prime minister that there will be no Brexit deal with the UK unless Northern Ireland is in the customs union “forever”. The source says she repeated “forever” on “multiple
The word habitually used by EU negotiators to characterise Boris Johnson’s Brexit offer is “uncertainty”. They talk of “uncertainty” about how the new customs border on the island of Ireland would work, about whether all the necessary checks could really take place away from the border. They say there is “uncertainty” about whether this new customs border
