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    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in UK Politics

      Brexit broke the Red Wall. Can Labour put it back together again?

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      Boris Johnson has used the Brexit divide to create a winning coalition of voters. The biggest new part of that coalition is working-class Leave voters who used to vote Labour, and who switched to the Conservatives in last year’s election. They gave Johnson a string of Tory gains in the north of England, the Midlands and north Wales, an uneven strip of seats known as the Red Wall.The big question of post-Brexit politics is what will happen to the voters in those seats. It is a question that Deborah Mattinson tries to answer in a new book called Beyond the Red Wall. It is the first substantial attempt to understand this important group of voters, and it is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the next election.Mattinson is well placed to carry out this study. I should declare an interest, as she helped me brilliantly with focus group research for a book about the attitudes of voters in 1989, called Me and Mine, in which I tried to find out if Margaret Thatcher had converted the British people to the virtues of Tory individualism (an early Question To Which The Answer Was No). More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in UK Politics

      How much does US pressure over Brexit hurt Boris Johnson?

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      Boris Johnson’s threat to break international law by overriding part of his EU withdrawal agreement has not only provoked a backlash from Conservative MPs and Brussels. It now risks a diplomatic dispute with the US Congress.
      Democratic congressmen Eliot Engel, Richard Neal and Bill Keating, who all chair committees in the House of Representatives, and Republican  Peter King asked him to  “abandon any and all legally questionable and unfair efforts to flout the Northern Ireland protocol of the withdrawal agreement and look to ensure that Brexit negotiations do not undermine the decades of progress to bring peace to Northern Ireland”. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in UK Politics

      How worried should Boris Johnson be about his party’s Brexit rebels?

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      Despite dire warnings about breaking international law, the government won the first vote on the UK internal market  on Monday night by a comfortable majority of 77. Only two Conservative MPs – Sir Roger Gale and Andrew Percy – voted against the bill, while more than 20 abstained. The Tory rebellion was somewhat offset by the support for the bill from the Democratic Union Party, which backs Brexit but opposes the withdrawal agreement. The most difficult moment in the House of Commons will probably come on Tuesday next week, when there will be votes on amendments to take out the clause of the bill that takes the power to override the withdrawal agreement, or to make it subject to a further vote of parliament. At that point, several of the abstainers might vote against the government, and other rebels who voted for the principle of the bill will join them. Damian Green, who was Theresa May’s deputy, voted for the bill in principle on Monday, but has said he will vote for an amendment that would require another vote, which has already been tabled by Sir Robert Neill, one of the abstainers. Boris Johnson tried to bamboozle the rebels by suggesting that, “if the powers were ever needed, ministers would return to this house with a statutory instrument on which a vote … would be held” – but he didn’t say that such a vote would come afterwards rather than before the powers were invoked.  More

    • 225 Shares159 Views

      in UK Politics

      'Rule of six' coronavirus laws were published minutes before they came into force as parliament bypassed yet again

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      The late appearance of the new Health Protection Regulations shortly before midnight on Sunday sparked fresh anger over the way ministers are introducing laws to combat the pandemic.It meant that police officers had no guidance on how to enforce the new restrictions on the first day they were in effect, while there were indications of widespread public confusion over the numerous exemptions to the law. More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      in UK Politics

      Should Boris Johnson care what former prime ministers think of his Brexit plan?

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      In the rarefied world inhabited by the tiny number of people who have ever held the keys to Number 10 Downing Street, the word “misgivings” should not be underestimated.While others might be tempted to use stronger language, former prime ministers are loth to criticise their successors.  Many are fearful of accusations that they cannot let go of the trappings of power, or of being labelled as a sore loser.   More

    • 200 Shares159 Views

      in UK Politics

      What are the legal remedies the EU could use if the UK broke the withdrawal agreement?

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      The European Commission responded furiously to the publication of the UK Internal Market Bill last week because it gives ministers the power to set aside some of the provisions of the withdrawal agreement by which the UK left the EU in January.  Maros Sefcovic, the commission vice-president, demanded a meeting with Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, in London, and “reminded” him that the withdrawal agreement “contains a number of mechanisms and legal remedies to address violations of the legal obligations contained in the text – which the European Union will not be shy in using”.But what are these “mechanisms and legal remedies”? He said there were a number of them, although that number is two. One is the Court of Justice of the EU, which retains the right to adjudicate on matters of EU law insofar as they affect the withdrawal agreement.   More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in UK Politics

      Will the government extend the furlough scheme?

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      As Boris Johnson announced some of the most severe restrictions on British public life in peace time from the state dining room of Downing Street in mid-March, Rishi Sunak was standing alongside the prime minister preparing to announce billions of spending.To coincide with the enforced closure of pubs, bars, restaurants and other social venues, the chancellor, who had been in the role for just over a month, unveiled the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme – one of the largest programmes of state intervention in British political history. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in UK Politics

      Could the House of Lords thwart Boris Johnson’s Brexit plans?

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      By far the most ominous recent public intervention in the arguments about Brexit came from Michael Howard, the former Conservative leader (2003 to 2005). Now Lord Howard, he is a man of impeccable Eurosceptic credentials, voted for Brexit and has thus far loyally supported the government. But for this distinguished former barrister, the overt threat to break international law and renege on the EU withdrawal agreement was just too much to bear. He put the case succinctly in a question to a government minister: “How can we reproach Russia, China or Iran when their conduct falls below internationally accepted standards, when we are showing such scant regard for our treaty obligations?”  There are many Tories – many more than in the Commons  who agree with Lord Howard, Lord Heseltine, Lord Lamont and other grandees across the chamber. In other words, Lord Howard is not one of them”usual suspects”, and evidence of dissent in the Commons will add to the forces of resistance in the Lords.  The questions are whether they Lords are entitled stop the government’s move to override the withdrawal agreement via the new Internal Market bill, and whether they will? More