The Conservatives should watch for a rival to their right

by Jason Tyler | 29th September 2020 | Brexit, Culture, Europe, General, Immigration, Politics

Many pixels and much paper have been spent trying to explain UKIP and, briefly, the Brexit Party.  Some see them as having been driven mainly by economics, and the effect of the financial crash and techological change on living standards, jobs and security.  Others...

The three testing days for Johnson coming up in the Commons. (Or two and a half at least.)

by Jason Tyler | 28th September 2020 | Brexit, Europe, General, Politics

Today, there is a general debate on Covid-19.  That will give the Government’s backbench critics who want a Sweden-style approach a chance to make their case.  It will be well worth watching to see how many put it; how strongly; and how many Tory backbenchers...

David Gauke: Johnson’s Covid policy – and why it’s opening up a rift between him and his traditional Tory supporters

by Jason Tyler | 26th September 2020 | Brexit, Europe, General, Politics

David Gauke is a former Justice Secretary, and was an independent candidate in South-West Hertfordshire at last year’s general election. For an amendment of no legal force that may not even be called, Graham Brady’s proposal that there should approve in advance...

Bill Cash: We would be within our rights to override the Withdrawal Agreement. And in any event, the EU itself is a law-breaker.

by Jason Tyler | 21st September 2020 | Brexit, Europe, General, Politics

Sir William Cash is Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, and is MP for Stone. Disraeli, the inspiration of One Nation, predicted in 1838 that “the continent will not suffer England to be the workshop of the world”. He wrote Sybil – or A Tale of Two Nations,...

Curfews will accelerate the decline of the nightlife industry

by Jason Tyler | 18th September 2020 | Europe, General, Politics

Over the last week or so, as cases of Coronavirus have begun to rise, a horrible word keeps coming up in the news and elsewhere. That is: “curfew(s)”. Already this term has become a reality for Bolton, and today in parts of Lancashire and Merseyside, where pubs, bars...

Both Johnson and the rebels want a compromise on the UK Internal Market Bill – so it looks as though we’ll get one

by Jason Tyler | 16th September 2020 | Brexit, Europe, General, Politics

As we reported yesterday, Boris Johnson told the Commons on Monday that, in the event of the so-called safeguard provisions that are contained in the UK Internal Market Bill being triggered, “Ministers would return to this House with a statutory instrument on...