An extension to the Article 50 period now seems inevitable. There was never any chance of a withdrawal agreement being reached and Johnson was never serious about trying to get one, nor was the EU going to bend for anything that made things worse than the May deal from their perspective. The government is pretending […]
The reason why the Brexit project continues to fail is because it is completely empty and cannot be made real
After the EU referendum result landed in June 2016, I was deeply distraught. I had been pro-European and argued the pro-EU cause well before it was in any way fashionable. Yet once May became prime minister and laid out her Brexit stall, it became obvious to me that leaving the EU was inevitable. We had […]
How the Brexit worm might be about to turn
My father is someone I’ve always thought of as a core Leaver. He once spouted the “Nazi Germany lives on within the EU” line to me – in 2009, so way before this was common currency. He liked Farage/UKIP and felt the Tories under Cameron were too liberal and cuddly. His feelings toward Theresa May […]
Boris Johnson has just handed Nigel Farage his general election campaign on a plate
In 2013, I went to a Bruges Group fringe at Manchester Town Hall, which was just outside of the Tory conference going on in the city at the same time. The panellists were Nigel Farage, Bill Cash, Peter Oborne and someone chairing I can’t recall. Bill Cash started and went on and on about how […]
Corbyn is standing in the way of a government of national unity. This is probably why
While the Tories were in Manchester at their national conference this week, the opposition met to decide next moves. The choice to be made was do they try and bring forward the date on which Johnson has to ask the EU for an extension, or do they vote to bring the government down and replace […]
What was Conservative party conference really like this year?
The big news on this, the final day of Tory conference, is that Boris Johnson has come up with a new fix on the Irish border situation. It’s all ready to present to the EU in what sounds like a “take it or leave it, continental scum” sort of manner. I didn’t think there could […]
Boris Johnson’s plan looks to be built on goading parliament to bring him down and have another prime minster
When Johnson stood in the Commons, having been unwillingly recalled there by a decision of the Supreme Court, and said things he must have known would rile Labour MPs on a personal level, I wondered what was going in his head. The Jo Cox stuff was beyond the pale, and I refuse to believe he […]
What should the Lib Dem fiscal policy be going into the next general election?
With the Tories becoming a more shrill version of UKIP with less professionalism and a worse leader, and the Labour Party becoming the Socialist Workers Party with greater factionalism, the political opportunity for the Liberal Democrats is vast. Everyone who even casually watches politics knows this. However, this is easy to say and harder for […]
What the hell does Boris Johnson do now? Here are his only real options after the Supreme Court ruling
What was so amazing about the Supreme Court ruling today, the one that declared Johnson’s prorogation of parliament null and void, for me at least, wasn’t the ruling itself but the fact that the decision was unanimous. It was a thumping defeat for the government. Interviewed from New York, the prime minister was bullish in […]
What’s Labour conference this year really like?
All of the reports from the wider media here in Brighton have been focused on two things: one, Labour infighting, centring on the attempt to remove Tom Watson from the Deputy Leader position; two, Labour’s more radical policy ideas like abolishing private schools and the 32-hour week. Neither of them strike me as being electorally […]