Despite the headline, I actually don’t want to talk about Shamima Begum in the specific very much in this article. I don’t want to get lost in discussing what it is she did that led the Home Office to strip her of her British citizenship; I want instead to focus on why I think that […]
Why both the Tories and Labour (and really, the Lib Dems) are taking the threat of the Independent Group way too lightly
Needless to say, The Independent Group could possibly flop from here. There could be no more resignations from the two big parties, for starters, which would leave it dead in the water, the 11 souls stranded on their own political island. The group could really screw up – we’ve had the unfortunate “funny tinge” moment, […]
Where does the Independent Group go next?
The reaction to yesterday’s press conference in which seven Labour MPs announced that they have left the party and will sit as an independent bloc (for now) has been extraordinary. It seems that a lot of people who have found themselves politically homeless over the last few years discovered in the Magnificent Seven a new […]
How today’s Labour splinter group could be directly aided by what Corbyn does next
So, it’s finally, finally happened: the Labour Party has split. Now that it’s gone down, it feels inevitable – yet it really took its time in finally taking place. Anyhow, now starts the questions: will the Independent Group succeed? Will other Labour MPs follow them soon enough? Will Tory MPs quit their whip and join […]
Following the latest government defeat, here’s what the latest Number 10 press statement really means
Right, so for those of you still desperately trying to keep up with what’s going with Brexit in the House of Commons, the government lost another vote last night. This has become so commonplace as to not qualify as news on its own anymore (remember when a government defeat was really newsworthy? I look back […]
Nothing Theresa May is doing now makes any sense, even on its own terms
For a long time, as many of you know, I was certain that May wouldn’t allow no deal Brexit to happen. Now, I don’t know. Perhaps parliament will figure out a way to stop it, if that’s what it comes to, but even that I have no strong confidence in. I’m not saying no deal […]
What a no deal Brexit would do to both major parties
There are some good articles floating around out there in the bubble about May’s thinking on no deal – the press in Westminster are starting to focus at long last on the fact that the country could be irreparably changing in a few weeks’ time. The logic goes that May always saw no deal as […]
Why any Brexit scenario from here is bad for Corbyn
The big news this week: Jeremy Corbyn is ready to do a deal with Theresa May. Well, sort of – one of the red lines in his proposal is that we join a customs union but still have a say on trade deals, which is not something that May is going to get the EU […]
This is the biggest mistake the People’s Vote campaign has made
I, like many Remainers, are a little weary about the idea of a second referendum and do not possess the confidence some younger pro-EU campaigners have about victory the next time out. Still, they have been pretty much the only game in town if you hold out any hope that Brexit can somehow be thwarted, […]
What is real news and what isn’t in the age of Brexit and Trump
For as long as I have been running this blog – and in fact, it was almost exactly five years ago that I started doing so – I have watched as mainstream media has become shriller and more polemic, trying to match the blogosphere in this respect in a chase for readership. I have seen […]