Theresa May has managed to move the trade talks with the EU onto phase two. Whatever I have ever said to her discredit, I have to hand her that victory. It may have saved her premiership – although, as I’ve said many times before, I have my doubts about whether Tory MPs really would have […]
Here’s why the hardcore Tory Brexiteers are sticking with May – and will probably continue to do so
One of the strangest things about the current political era is that we have a prime minister who campaigned (however weakly) for Remain, yet has (in public rhetoric terms anyhow) become the one who has set out a hard Brexit path. It has been widely speculated that the reason hard Brexiteers have been relatively loyal […]
It may well come down to a choice between Brexit and keeping the Union together
One of the things about the whole Brexit dynamic that I fail to grasp, and by Brexit dynamic I don’t just mean the referendum held on June 23, 2016 and its aftermath but rather the whole of Eurosceptic thought since at least 2009, is the attitudes towards the Union shown by the Brexit passionate. Almost […]
Yesterday was a national embarrasment of epic proportions – so why is the coverage of it so muted?
Let’s unpick what happened yesterday. The British prime minister travelled to Brussels to have lunch with the president of the European Commission, over which it was planned that they would finalise the wordings that would allow the trade talks between the UK and the EU to move to the next stage. The big issue that […]
The strangest thing about our age: most politicians are doing what they think the public wants, not what they think is right
The vote to leave the European Union in June 2016 created a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom; it looks like it will take years if not decades to sort out. The government of the day presented the public with a referendum, not on something they wanted to go ahead with but felt they needed […]
Tory MPs cling to May as leader for fear of something worse. So should we all
At the end of the summer, I reviewed whether or not Theresa May remaining as leader of the Conservative Party was the best thing for that particularly party. Now I feel the need to consider whether or not her continuing as prime minister is in the best interests of us all, paying particular attention to […]
The 350 million pound problem with referenda and its consequences
Simon Stevens, chief executive of the NHS, is going to make a speech today alluding to the idea that the government should live up to its promise, one made during the referendum, of an extra 350 million pounds a week that is supposed to be spent on the National Health Service in the event of […]
Theresa May just missed a big chance – and it suggests she’ll miss the next one, should it come along
The sexual harassment scandal currently engulfing Westminster is the very last thing Theresa May needed. Although it does not represent a threat to the government nor to Brexit to the extent many pundits are (rather over hopefully) predicting, it has placed the prime minister in a tricky position at a time when she already had […]
The problem with British politics? We no longer have either a Conservative or a Liberal party
I have written on several occasions already about how pushing for a “no deal” Brexit – or “clean” Brexit, if you like – is the least conservative thing any government has considered doing at least since the end of the war. But this unconservative streak in regards to Brexit and the Tories runs deeper. The […]
Brexit trumps everything: how the Right have begun to critique fiscal conservatism in earnest
In the latest turn in the soap opera which has become Britain’s attempts to leave the European Union, witness right wing Brexiteers within the Conservative Party imploring the Prime Minister and her Chancellor to spend more public money “preparing” for a “no deal” Brexit. In other words, fiscal conservatives are asking that a Tory leader […]