Eu

Google’s decision to employ an extra 3,000 people in London is undoubtedly great news for Britain. But it’s nonsense to try and tangle the company’s plans as being all – or, indeed, anything – about Brexit. Of course, it was only a matter of time before Google’s announcement was glimpsed through the Brexit prism. Everything is these days. Some have said the new jobs promised by Google and the firm’s £1bn investment is ‘despite’ the outcome of the referendum. In their coverage of the announcement, Bloomberg said tech firms had been left wondering ‘whether they’ll still be able to hire workers from overseas…after the country leaves the bloc’. This suggested Google’s announcement was something of a

So, another post-Brexit horror story fails to materialise. When the stock market failed to crash and the economy failed to slump, the continuing Remain campaign hit on another fear: inflation. When the CPI rose in September to one per cent, it was predicted to be merely the beginning of a trend which would see prices surge as a result of the fall in the pound. Instead, the CPI fell back slightly last month to 0.9 per cent. It may well rise again in the coming months, but it is already clear that it is going to be hard to maintain the narrative of a Brexit-inspired inflationary spiral. At 0.9 per

Britain’s position heading into its Brexit talks is far stronger than it was a week ago, I argue in The Sun today. Why, because Donald Trump has changed the dynamics of global politics. Brexit’s critics used to claim that this country would be isolated after it left the EU. But it is hard to make that case when the president-elect of the most powerful country in the world is in favour of it. Indeed, the next US President is more enthusiastic about it than the British Prime Minister. He was for it before June 23rd. Theresa May now has a chance to create a strong relationship with Trump before other

One searches in vain on the Guardian website for the name Nissar Hussain. This is odd because the newspaper seems to have spent the past few months engaged in a campaign against hate. Virtually every day there is a column or leader grimly claiming that the vote for Brexit has unleashed a spate of hate. Its archives brim with news stories trying to infer a causal link between Brexit and a reported rise in hate crime – even to the point of absurdity. Last month, the paper carried a story claiming that there had been a 147 per cent rise in homophobic attacks since Brexit. Given that homosexuality didn’t feature

When a Prime Minister flies off abroad with a few business-leaders it is seldom worthy of comment. Such trade missions tend to achieve little, beyond generating headlines intended to flaunt politicians’ pro-business credentials. But with the impending departure of Britain from the European Union,-Theresa May’s visit to India this week, accompanied by Sir James Dyson and others, has huge significance. For the first time in four decades, a British Prime Minister can discuss doing trade deals — something which we have until now been forced to contract out to officials in Brussels. Mrs May chose her destination shrewdly. With its rapidly expanding economy and the gradual liberalisation of economic policy, India

What worries government ministers, as I say in The Sun this morning, is not the actual vote on the Article 50 bill—voting against the bill as whole would be akin to rejecting the referendum result—but attempts to tie Theresa May’s hands ahead of the negotiation through amendments to the bill. One senior Cabinet Minister tells me that peers and MPs ‘won’t be able to resist’ trying to amend the bill. Though, it is worth noting that because of public concern about free movement there probably isn’t a Commons majority for staying in the single market, post referendum. Downing Street is adamant that they don’t want an early election, and that

As a general rule, any day the government loses in court is a good day. So yesterday was an especially fine day. A delicious one, too, obviously, in as much as the fist-clenched, foot-stamping, whining of so many Brexiteers was so overblown and ludicrous it toppled into hilarity. People who shouted for months about the urgent need to restore parliamentary sovereignty now reacted in horror to the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty. ‘That’s not what we meant’, they spluttered. We meant governmental supremacy only when it suits us. Well, tough. A certain amount of squealing was only to be expected since, if Nigel Farage has taught us anything, it is that the Brexit-minded

The Government’s insistence that we should not give away our hand in negotiations with the EU has backfired. It is putting us in a weak position because the primary reason for not giving away your hand is when you are bluffing. We are not bluffing. We are in a strong position and should take maximum advantage of it.  When negotiating with someone who may or may not be reasonable, there is unavoidable uncertainty. We should define the worst that can happen and prepare for it. We can’t control how our opponents behave, but we should define all the things we can control and make sure we control them. Whether or

Being an out-and-proud Brexiteer, someone who would go to the barricades for Brexit, someone who might even take a bullet for Brexit, I often get emails from people who feel the same way but feel they can’t express their Brexitphilia in public. This week, in response to my Big Issue column on, yes, the beauty of Brexit, a correspondent tells me that, like me, he voted Leave for liberal, democratic reasons, not Little Englander ones, but such has been the ‘name-calling’ and ‘toxicity’ in response to his decision that he’s had to slink off social media and keep his head down. It’s awful. Loads of Brexiteers feel like this —