Eu

Catalonia deserves independence as much as any other state

Few, if any, commentators have seen fit to discuss the wider issue and the underlying morality from first principles. The instant reaction in all quarters has been to back Spain over the plucky little Catalans. The principle of national self-determination was laid down by Woodrow Wilson after the First World War and accepted by the colonial powers who unwound their empires, if somewhat reluctantly, over the next half-century. Both the League of Nations and the United Nations were founded partly to advocate for this principal. In the case of Kosovo we actually attacked Serbia for refusing the Kosovans this basic human right. What is so different about Catalonia and the

Franco’s fascism is alive and kicking in Spain

Barcelona After the demonstration in Barcelona on Sunday, I happened to walk past the city’s main police station. A unionist crowd had gathered to praise the officers who had so brutally suppressed the Catalan referendum the previous week. Wrapped in Spanish flags, they were chanting Viva España and throwing flowers. Then they started performing the Nazi salute. I hung around to report on it (a video that I shot on my phone was retweeted many thousands of times). The fascists, I realised, had based themselves in a pub next door. I went in, filming on my GoPro, and saw police drinking with far-Right thugs, smiling as they were serenaded with

The conservative case against Catalonia’s separatist narrative

Daniel Hannan has written, compellingly and eloquently as usual, about the constitutional crisis taking place in my country, Spain. In his piece, he invokes the celebrated Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno who, as Spain plunged into civil war in 1936, admonished the anti-intellectual, anti-liberal nationalist rebels that they would ‘vanquish, but not convince’. Unamuno was of course right: after three years of bloodshed, Spain endured nearly four decades of dictatorship, punctured by the deprivations from autarky and international isolation well into the 1950s. But today’s Spain is a much different place. Following Francisco Franco’s death in 1975, the country underwent a peaceful democratic transition which elicited admiration the world over.

James Forsyth

Theresa May should appoint a Secretary of State for No Deal

The Brexit talks collapsing would be a bad thing. It shouldn’t be the aim of the UK government, but it should be something that the government is prepared for. After all, there is a non-negligible chance of this happening. Compounding this is that the United Kingdom can’t credibly threaten to walk away from the table unless it is actually ready to do so. Without the ability to walk away, Theresa May will be left having to accept whatever the EU offers. It’s evident that Britain is not currently prepared for a no deal scenario. There needs to be a massive push if the UK is to get itself anywhere near

Ross Clark

The Bombardier dispute could actually bring down May’s government

When governments fall it often comes from an unexpected quarter. Thirty eight years ago, James Callaghan’s government fell not as a direct result of the Winter of Discontent but from the fallout over a failed referendum on Scottish devolution. Over the past week we have heard plenty of speculation about Theresa May losing her job thanks to her cough at Manchester or through Brexit-induced civil war in her cabinet. But could we be missing something more obscure but at the same time more ominous? The more I think about it, the gravest danger to the government comes not from its handling of Brexit, universal credit, inflation or any of the

Juncker’s EU vision won’t end well

You can see why Theresa May said in Florence that the British wished the European Union well in its plans for greater integration, while choosing a different path ourselves. There is no point in causing antagonism over what we cannot prevent. But in fact greater European integration will do great harm to all Europeans, including us. The rise of AfD in the German elections was caused almost entirely by Mrs Merkel’s extraordinary decision to admit a million Middle Eastern migrants in a year. The spread of the Schengen area — proposed by Jean-Claude Juncker — combined with recrudescent migrant pressure can only confirm freedom of movement as the impossible issue

The Spectator’s Notes | 28 September 2017

You can see why Theresa May said in Florence that the British wished the European Union well in its plans for greater integration, while choosing a different path ourselves. There is no point in causing antagonism over what we cannot prevent. But in fact greater European integration will do great harm to all Europeans, including us. The rise of AfD in the German elections was caused almost entirely by Mrs Merkel’s extraordinary decision to admit a million Middle Eastern migrants in a year. The spread of the Schengen area — proposed by Jean-Claude Juncker — combined with recrudescent migrant pressure can only confirm freedom of movement as the impossible issue

High life | 28 September 2017

I think this week marks my 40th anniversary as a Spectator columnist, but I’m not 100 per cent certain. All I know is that I was 39 or 40 years old when the column began, and that I’ve just had my 81st birthday. Keeping a record is not my strong point, and it’s also a double-edged sword. I once planned to publish my diary, but then I stopped keeping one. I’d found passages in it that were dishonest, written in the heat of the moment, most likely under the influence, and the result was a bum-clenching embarrassment. Now I don’t use any social media, certainly not Twitter, Facebook or Instagram,

Katy Balls

Barnier: it may take months to get to phase two of Brexit talks

Theresa May’s Florence speech last week certainly prompted a warming of words from Brussels – but so far it has triggered little action. At today’s press conference between Michel Barnier and David Davis to mark the completion of the fourth round of Brexit talks, the EU’s chief negotiator said not enough progress had been made to move to talking about a UK/EU trade deal in the next round of talks: ‘I think it’s positive that Theresa May’s speech made it possible to unblock the situation, to some extent, and give a new dynamic to the situation. But we are far from being at a stage – it will take weeks,

Alternative für Deutschland’s success tells the tale of Germany’s forgotten East

Back in the early 1990s, a few years after the Berlin Wall came down, I went back to the house in Dresden where my father was born. The house was on the outskirts so my father and grandmother survived the bombing – they got the last train out of Dresden before the Red Army arrived. The family I found there had been there since 1945. They’d been expelled from Silesia when Stalin handed the region over to Poland, and had ended up in Dresden along with so many other displaced Germans. They’d been living there for half a century, three generations under the same roof. They didn’t own this house

The real winner of Germany’s election is Jean-Claude Juncker

Even if Germany had Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, Angela Merkel would be struggling this morning to form a government. With 33 per cent of the vote, her Christian Democrat and Christian Social alliance has suffered its weakest showing in 68 years – tempered only by the equal failure of the socialists. It might have been a moment for Emmanuel Macron to seize the crown of de facto leader of Europe were it not that he, too, suffered a lower-profile though no less significant electoral reversal over the weekend – in Senate elections the La Republique En Marche party won only 23 of the 171 seats up for grabs. With his

Germany’s shy AfD voters hand the Bundesrepublik a seismic shock

The German Embassy in London threw an election party yesterday, but as the guests gathered round the big screens to watch the exit poll the mood became subdued. Of course diplomats are supposed to be neutral and even German journalists strive to be objective, but off the record everyone here in Belgrave Square was saying the same thing: ‘Anyone but AfD.’ Alternative für Deutschland, Germany’s anti-immigration party, has been a thorn in Angela Merkel’s side ever since it was founded four years ago. In Germany’s last election, in 2013, it polled 4.7 per cent – just missing out on the 5 per cent required for representation in the Bundestag, German’s

‘Long and vain’: Europe’s press reacts to Theresa May’s Florence speech

Following months of tortured negotiation between the UK and the EU, Theresa May delivered her speech in Florence yesterday in an attempt to break the Brexit deadlock. Mrs May proposed a two-year transition period during which Britain would retain its access to the single market and confirmed that the UK Government will honour its commitments to the EU budget. She also spoke of the ‘shared challenges and opportunities’ that face the UK and the EU in a bid to build consensus. Here’s how Europe’s press reacted to the long-awaited speech. France France’s centre-left daily, Le Monde, agrees with Theresa May that Brexit negotiations can be extended beyond March 2019, however, points

Britain may have lost faith – but Germany still believes in the EU

Theresa May’s Florence speech may have been welcomed with cautious optimism by Michel Barnier, but the reaction in Germany has been decidedly more downbeat. ‘In substance, May is bringing no more clarity,’ tweeted German MEP Manfred Weber. ‘I am even more concerned now.’ Weber is Chairman of the centre-right European Peoples Party, the biggest grouping in the European Parliament, and a rising star in Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. So does he speak for Merkel? Well, that would be pushing it, but while ‘Mutti’ maintains her deafening silence about all matters Brexit, it’s probably the closest we’re going to get. ‘The clock is ticking and time is running faster than

Steerpike

Jacob Rees-Mogg sees red

Although Theresa May did manage to prevent a revolt breaking out after her speech in Florence yesterday, that’s not to say anyone in Cabinet is particularly pleased by her words. The Prime Minister did buy herself more time – but failed to clearly say where she what direction she was planning to go in that period. On the backbenches, Conservative MPs have less reason to hold their tongue over such concerns – as Jacob Rees-Mogg demonstrated on Newsnight. The Brexiteer MP has been the first out of the blocks to express concern over what May said – and the red lines she may have crossed: ‘I have three concerns about

Barometer | 21 September 2017

Roll up, roll up Party conferences this year revolve around the familiar settings of Bournemouth, Brighton and Manchester. But one party used to be more adventurous. — For its first conference in 1981 the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP) opted to have a rolling conference with meetings in Perth, Bradford and London, with the entourage travelling between them (to quote the Conservative Research Department) ‘rather like Trotsky in his armoured train’. — The following year the train rolled between Cardiff, Derby and Great Yarmouth, but broke down between Peterborough and Ely on the last leg. — The travelling conference was then abandoned, but during its last assembly as a

Seeing the light | 21 September 2017

‘You can’t lie… on radio,’ says Liza Tarbuck. The Radio 2 DJ was being interviewed for the network’s birthday portrait, celebrating 50 years since it morphed from the Light Programme into its present status as the UK’s best-loved radio station — with almost 15 million listeners each week. ‘The intimacy of radio dictates you can’t lie because people can hear it.’ She’s absolutely right. As she went on to explain, when you’re driving and it’s just the radio and you, no distraction, ‘You can hear things in my voice that I don’t even know I’m giving away.’ It’s what makes radio so testing for politicians, you can see right through

James Forsyth

Brexit wars

The time for choosing is fast approaching for Theresa May. Soon she must make a decision that will define her premiership and her country’s future. The past few days have shown how hard, if not impossible, it will be for her to keep her entire cabinet on board with whatever EU deal she signs. It is imperative that she now picks what kind of Brexit she wants. But doing so will risk alienating — or even losing — various cabinet members. She has been trying to blur the lines for months, but as one of those closely involved in this drama warns: ‘She can’t fudge this forever.’ Another participant in

A court’s contempt

The issue of sovereignty has mysteriously disappeared from the debate over Brexit. Some business-focused commentators even like to assert that in a ‘global, interconnected world’, sovereignty is meaningless. But a court judgment, delivered earlier this month, perfectly illustrates what is at stake. The case is about national security. Specifically, it is about the legality of techniques used to identify and disrupt people intent on unleashing terror: the kind of terror we have seen recently in Manchester, Westminster, Borough Market and Parsons Green. The technique at issue is the bulk collection of communications data (BCD). This data is the ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘with whom’ of communications, not what was written