The long awaited speech, laying out Theresa May’s plan for Brexit, has finally reached us. She will describe her twelve negotiating objectives for leaving the EU (which hasn’t been trailed to the press, so we all need to wait and see on that one) at 11:45 this morning. There is enough vagueness in it that single market […]
Philip Hammond’s interesting comments to a German newspaper – and what it hints at for Brexit
The chancellor of the exchequer has been supposedly one of the more single market friendly members of the cabinet, which makes his comments to the German newspaper, Welt am Sonntag, this morning all the more interesting. He said that if the UK floated out of the single market it could abandon social democracy. Or as Phil put […]
ALDE turning down the Five Star Movement is an epoch defining act of stupidity for European liberalism
For those of you who haven’t followed the story, the Five Star Movement, Beppe Grillo’s insurgent political force that looks to possibly even form the next Italian government if the Italian establishment doesn’t stitch up a voting system to stop them from doing so, decided to leave their grouping in the European Parliament and join […]
Jeremy Corbyn just burned his one last shred of integrity
When Corbyn got elected as Labour leader in September 2015, I thought at the very least we’d get to see what opposition unhinged and unsullied by compromise would look like. I knew I would probably disagree with a lot of Corbyn’s policies, but I did have to admit that watching someone say previously unsayable things from […]
Theresa May should just fully admit that she plans to leave the single market
There is much buzz in Westminster today surrounding Theresa May’s interview with Sophy Ridge. Many of the more Eurosceptic news outlets reported that the prime minister had ruled out Britain remaining in the single market; others got a different impression. Let’s go to the transcript of what Theresa May actually said: “Anybody who looks at this […]
I think this is what Brexit might look like
In the wake of the latest shakeup involving who will be the UK’s EU ambassador going into the Article 50 negotiations, people have wondered anew about whether or not the government has a detailed plan regarding Brexit or not. Are they simply winging it, or is there something they’d rather not discuss? For what it’s […]
Labour is playing a dangerous game on immigration
The “I” word has caused the Labour Party no end of problems in the past few years. Remember the “immigration mug” before the 2015 general election and all of the furore that caused on the Left? It has got worse since. A lot worse. Immediately following the vote to leave the European Union, many members […]
Here’s my predictions for 2017
Making any predictions for an upcoming year has become a perilous exercise recently. One only has to look at the Tory majority the experts (who people are now sick of as a result, apparently) said was less likely than an asteroid striking the Earth that did indeed take place, or the double punch of Brexit […]
How’s the start of Corbyn’s “populist relaunch” going? Oh right
As phase one of Corbyn Mark 2.0, the Labour leader has given a series of interviews and filmed his New Year message. From this we can glean what the “populist re-launch” will look like. All I can say so far is: oh dear. Let’s see what the supreme leader has told the Mirror: “I will challenge UKIP […]
Does Corbyn have a point about May’s “Tudor tendencies”?
In an interview with The Guardian, Jeremy Corbyn (shocked to see him interacting with the right-wing press) had a go at Theresa May for being like Henry VIII in her desire to keep the triggering of Article 50 from parliament, instead citing royal prerogative as the means to do this. In layman’s terms, being a […]