Theresa may

PMQs: Corbyn’s confusion over the single market

Jeremy Corbyn’s attack line on Theresa May at Prime Minister’s Questions today might have been more effective had the Labour leader not appeared confused about what he was asking. He had no option but to talk about Brexit, something he has tried to avoid in his year and a half in the job because of his own ambivalence over Europe and his disagreements with his party about what is particularly bad about the European Union. May teased the Labour leader about his apparent confusion yesterday over whether membership of the single market was the same as access to the single market, telling him that ‘I’ve got a plan, he doesn’t

Charles Moore

Theresa May’s Twelve Steps for EU recovery

The earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous offered their famous Twelve Steps, which the drunkard must take in order to recover, born of their own experience. The Twelve Steps are still the foundation of AA. They work because they are taken by people who have hit rock bottom and realise it. The first step says, ‘We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.’ Theresa May’s Twelve Objectives, announced in her outstanding speech at Lancaster House of Tuesday, play a similar role for national recovery, substituting the words ‘European Union’ for ‘alcohol’. Until the June referendum, Mrs May, like millions of others, barely even admitted there

Steerpike

SNP MP’s fake news

Although Theresa May’s speech revealing her plan for a global Britain was well-received by her party and much of the media yesterday, the SNP found much cause for concern. While Nicola Sturgeon has said May’s announcement that the UK will leave the single market makes a second independence referendum more likely, Paul Monaghan has a different interpretation. The SNP MP has tweeted out what Theresa May has said ‘in her own words’ a hard Brexit would mean. It comes with a quote — attributed to May — claiming: ‘Yes, things will cost more. Yes, you’ll have to retire later. Yes, our standing in the world will decline.’ Only May said

Theresa May prepares to play tough

Theresa May’s Lancaster House speech sought to answer the question: does the Government have a plan for Brexit? Open Europe’s judgement is that she succeeded. And she also started to set out a wider vision for the UK’s relationship with the EU, linking it both to Britain’s place in the world, and to her own domestic vision – for the sort of country ‘we want to be’. At first sight the Prime Minister’s 12-point plan for a global Britain seems to be a masterclass in common sense. We welcome her clarity on various points, including that – inevitably – both Houses of Parliament will vote on the UK’s final deal

Ross Clark

Hard Brexit it is – and the currency markets don’t seem to mind

A hard Brexit, currency markets seemed to indicate yesterday, would mean an even weaker pound. How, then, to explain this afternoon’s surge in sterling, which surged from just over $1.20 to just under $1.24 within a couple of hours of Theresa May’s speech? The rise more than reversed the falls since Monday morning, when the contents of the Prime Minister’s speech first became apparent. In other words, the market for sterling seemed to fear hard Brexit, but when it got hard Brexit it turned jubilant. Some have interpreted the rise as a reaction to Theresa May’s announcement that once the Brexit deal has been done it will be subject to

May just made another Scottish referendum ‘more likely’, says Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon inched Scotland closer to a re-run of its independence referendum today by reacting angrily to Theresa May’s Brexit speech. Having already put indyref2 ‘on the table’ – but not for this year – Scotland’s First Minister said the Prime Minister’s speech today had made another independence vote ‘more likely’. ‘The UK Government cannot be allowed to take us out of the EU and the single market regardless of the impact on our economy, jobs, living standards and our reputation as an open, tolerant country, without Scotland having the ability to choose between that and a different future,’ the First Minister said. And she added: ‘With her comments today, the Prime Minister has

James Forsyth

May’s aim: take back control of the Brexit negotiation

Listen to Isabel Hardman, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth reviewing Theresa May’s speech: Theresa May’s speech today was striking for how much it took off the negotiating table. Britain is, she said, leaving the single market. She isn’t going to spend anytime seeing if free movement – but only for those with a job – might be somehow compatible with single-market membership. She was also clear that the UK is quitting the EU’s common external tariff and commercial policy.  Why is May doing this? Well, staying in the single market with no say over the rules is, obviously, not a sustainable position—you couldn’t regulate the City of London by just

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May’s cheery Brexit threat to EU leaders

Theresa May was at pains in her Brexit speech and in the question-and-answer session from journalists afterwards to appear as friendly as possible to European leaders. She pointedly took questions from members of the European press who were present. She told the room that ‘we are leaving the European Union, but we are not leaving Europe’, and addressed ‘our friends across Europe directly’, promising that Britain would continue to be ‘reliable partners, willing allies and close friends’. But she also took a very strong negotiating line, threatening what David Cameron either couldn’t or wouldn’t, which was to walk away if the deal offered wasn’t good enough, particularly if EU leaders

Nick Hilton

Coffee House Shots: Theresa May outlines her Brexit plans

In front of a packed audience at Lancaster House, Theresa May delivered a speech outlining some of the key components of the Brexit deal that she is seeking. As Fraser Nelson dissects in his piece, there was confirmation of the UK’s exit from the single market and customs union, along with other telling hints about her negotiating strategy. Isabel Hardman is joined on Coffee House Shots by Fraser and James Forsyth, the Spectator’s Political Editor, to pick out the essential soundbites from May’s speech, which opened, not unlike the Spectator’s Brexit endorsement, by encouraging the UK to go ‘out, into the world’. You can listen to their discussion here: And if you enjoyed that,

Theresa May’s Brexit speech: A Global Britain

Listen to Isabel Hardman, Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth reviewing Theresa May’s speech:   A little over six months ago, the British people voted for change. They voted to shape a brighter future for our country. They voted to leave the European Union and embrace the world. And they did so with their eyes open: accepting that the road ahead will be uncertain at times, but believing that it leads towards a brighter future for their children – and their grandchildren too. And it is the job of this Government to deliver it. That means more than negotiating our new relationship with the EU. It means taking the opportunity of

Fraser Nelson

Theresa May’s Brexit speech – ten main points

‘A Global Britain’ promised the slogan behind Theresa May as she delivered her big Brexit speech. It was robust and well-judged, very much in the tone of The Spectator‘s leading article endorsing Brexit – she even used the same ‘Out, and into the world’ language we put on our cover. The referendum, she said, was ‘a vote to restore, as we see it, our parliamentary democracy, national self-determination and to and become even more global and internationalist in action and in spirit.’ She spoke so persuasively about the case for Brexit that you almost forgot that she campaigned (or, at least, voted) against it. But after a decent period of reflection, her conversion to Brexistism is

Isabel Hardman

Will Theresa May finally tell us what Brexit means?

How much will Theresa May’s speech today surprise us? The Prime Minister’s promise to offer more detail on Brexit was made before Christmas, but Number 10 types seemed curiously relaxed about the prep for the speech over the holiday. And even though those briefing the speech over the weekend warned of a ‘market correction’, this is likely to have been as much to suggest that the speech was going to be big and revelatory as it was to actually warn about its content. Today we will get the 12 priorities for May’s negotiation of Britain’s exit, which will be guided by four key principles. Those are ‘certainty and clarity’, ‘a

Theresa May can now drive a hard Brexit bargain – and she knows it

The backdrop to Theresa May’s Brexit speech is almost as interesting as the speech itself promises to be. First, there’s the government’s very deliberate decision to make clear—via a Philip Hammond interview in the German press—that Britain will play hardball if it can’t secure a decent deal with the EU. Hammond made clear to Welt am Sonntag that if the UK can’t negotiate a reasonable new trading arrangement with the EU then it is prepared to slash tax and regulation to make its economy more competitive. This is a deliberate attempt to play on European worries about having some kind of Singapore West on its doorstep. Hammond’s intervention is striking

Who’s afraid of a ‘hard’ Brexit?

Pull yourselves together, you wusses. It’s a minor readjustment of our tariff arrangements we’re talking about, not an epidemic or a foreign invasion or an asteroid strike. Not that anyone would guess it from the apocalyptic vocabulary you’re using. ‘A hard Brexit,’ says Keir Starmer for Labour, ‘would be catastrophic for our economy, living standards, jobs and future prosperity’. Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, agrees it would be ‘economically disastrous’. The CBI calls it ‘very negative’. Sound familiar? We became accustomed to such over-the-top language during the referendum campaign. The very act of voting Leave, we were told, would cause an immediate recession. Unemployment would surge and the stock

Alex Massie

Princess Diana understood what ‘global Britain’ meant. Does Theresa May?

So, ‘global Britain’ eh? This, we are told, will be the leitmotif for Theresa May’s Brexit speech tomorrow and, indeed, for her approach to international affairs more generally. And who could disagree with any of that? The argument will, of course, be couched in economic terms. The spirit of Britannia will be unleashed to sail the world’s oceans. Britain is back, you know. We shall show the doubters what we’re made of and by jove we’ll make a success of Brexit. Well, let us hope so. There are many kinds of internationalism, however, and I’m not sure – at least not sure yet – the buccaneers really appreciate, far less

The Brexiteers turn on the plebs

The trouble with plebiscites is that they leave the plebs stranded. A complicated issue is reduced to one question: should we leave the EU, yes or no. Nowhere on the ballot does it ask whether we should leave the single market or currency union, crash into the WTO without trade agreements with the rest of the world, or tear up employment protections. There is just the deceptively simple question. It provides no guidance to which of the thousands of possible futures we could chose when it is answered. The Leavers might have interpreted the referendum result as meaning Britain should embrace the Norway model; and pay the price for staying

James Forsyth

Why Theresa May isn’t the new Iron Lady

Curbs on executive pay, restrictions on foreign takeovers and workers on boards. Not Jeremy Corbyn’s plan for Britain, but ideas raised by Theresa May and put forward for discussion at her cabinet committee on the economy and industrial strategy. Not for 40 years have the Tories had a Prime Minister so firmly on the left of the party. May joined the Tories before Margaret Thatcher became leader and in many ways she represents a bridge back to the pre-Thatcher era. That is why comparisons between Britain’s two female prime ministers don’t reveal much — they come from very different traditions. Since Thatcherism took over the party, many Tories have looked

The PM’s national security adviser is leaving

  Mark Lyall Grant, the Prime Minister’s national security adviser, is leaving. As I report in The Sun today, the 60 year-old Lyall Grant is to retire later this year. The hot favourite to replace Lyall Grant is Mark Sedwill, the permanent secretary at the Home Office. Theresa May knows Sedwill well from her time as Home Secretary, they worked together for three years. Having him in Downing Street will mean that she has foreign policy advice from an official with whom she has developed a strong working relationship with. ‘She likes people we know and trust’, says one senior figure involved in discussions about the move. Sedwill, a former

Leak suggests EU will seek ‘special’ deal to access the City post-Brexit

The Guardian has a very significant story on its front page tomorrow. It has obtained notes of a meeting that Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, had with senior MEPs this week. These notes show that Barnier told them that he wanted a ‘special’ deal that would guarantee access for the EU firms and countries to the City of London’s financial markets. Interestingly, Barnier also said—according to The Guardian’s account—that ‘There will need to be work outside of the negotiation box … in order to avoid financial instability.” This suggests that Barnier shares Mark Carney’s view that there are financial stability risks for Europe if the EU cuts itself off