The procedural antics of Westminster seem pretty petty this morning compared to the appalling loss of life in New Zealand (see below). There will be a minute’s silence in the Commons at 11am. Theresa May has already condemned “this sickening act of violence” and is sure to say more later.
Closer to home, her pressing priority for the next few days is just how to rescue both her Brexit plan and her premiership. Remember, exactly two weeks from today, the UK was due to leave the EU. After last night’s Commons vote, we won’t be leaving on March 29 and a new date of June 30 now has the endorsement of Parliament instead. The delay could be even longer if May’s deal is rejected a third time next week.
The sheer chaos of yesterday’s votes was another reminder that May now has almost no control over her party. Worse still, her authority as Prime Minister has been comprehensively shredded by the very thing that got her into No.10 in the first place: the Brexit referendum result. The spectacle of 188 of her MPs, whips and seven Cabinet ministers opposing a government motion to delay Exit Day was indeed shambolic. I know it was a free vote so not technically a ‘rebellion’ at all, but be in no doubt it was a major political revolt. More than half May’s party effectively chided her for postponing Brexit.
At 4.59pm yesterday, Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay told MPs: “It is time for this House to act in the national interest. It is time to put forward an extension that is realistic. I commend the Government motion to the House.” By 5.15pm, Barclay had voted against that very same motion. As Keir Starmer rightly put it, it was like a Chancellor voting against his own Budget. Even in a Parliament that is these days unsurprised by the surprising, it was a shocking example of the dysfunctionality of this administration.
It’s worth recalling that May has been dragged to the humiliation of abandoning March 29 as Exit Day, having said more than 100 times we will leave ‘on time’. The delay was forced on her by the shrewd procedural tactics of Yvette Cooper and Oliver Letwin earlier this month, whose threatened amendment persuaded the PM to draft her own extension proposals. Starmer has long predicted an extension was inevitable.
In chaos theory, very small changes eventually have a big impact. And the significant tweak to Parliamentary procedure back in December 2017, with Starmer and Dominic Grieve forcing May to hold ‘meaningful votes’ (a highly unusual constitutional innovation, as normally legislation is what matters most) has led to her current plight. The race against time to pass the vote, and to then complete the legislation required for our exit, has proved just too impossible.
And yet the PM has an uncanny, limpet-like ability to remain in office. Despite last night’s rebellion, she still won the main vote. And she narrowly saw off Hilary Benn’s bid to let MPs seize control of the process from the executive. As the old “accentuate the positive” song goes: “Have faith, or pandemonium liable to walk upon the scene”. Pandemonium seemed to rule yesterday, but the fact is May has one last chance to get her deal through. Brexit is indeed chaotic, yet she’s still the captain of the ghost ship that is this government. For a few more days at least.
In a vain bid to avoid the second crushing defeat for May’s plans on Tuesday night, one of the desperate wheezes that was cooked up at the last minute was a plan to somehow use the Vienna Convention to help the UK get out of the Northern Ireland ‘backstop’. It was ridiculed at the time by Dominic Grieve, again dismissed by Ken Clarke and Keir Starmer yesterday, but still the government felt it could woo the DUP or Brexiteers.
Well, last night the Telegraph’s Steve Swinford (who has been killing it with a string of Brexit scoops) revealed the details of the Attorney General’s new clarification of this point. And just as importantly, he reported that so-called ‘Star Chamber’ of Brexiteer and DUP lawyers have already ruled that Cox’s interpretation of the law is “clearly erroneous”. Brexiteer and QC Martin Howe told the Standard the ideas was a “complete non-starter” and risked turning Cox’s legal advice from a ”codpiece” into a “figleaf”.
What made things even worse yesterday in trying to win round the DUP was Ian Paisley’s anger with Michael Gove for threatening ‘direct rule’ to Northern Ireland. David Lidington tried to placate him by refusing to endorse Gove’s words. Still, the government is working hard today and throughout the weekend of finding other ways to get the DUP and European Research Group (ERG) on board. As Open Europe director Henry Newman (who does a better job than most Cabinet ministers in explaining and defending May’s deal) points out on our podcast this week, if MPs like David Davis and Philip Davies can back the PM now, why can’t others?
Yet given there’s a hardcore now of ‘irreconcilables’ like Steve Baker and Mark Francois, it’s all the more amazing May isn’t convening urgent face-to-face meetings with the Labour MPs she needs to outnumber the ERG ultras. If she gives them some guarantees of a real say on the future trade deal they may come over.
As for Labour, Jeremy Corbyn last night sacked three shadow ministers and a whip for defying his orders to abstain on Sarah Wollaston’s second referendum amendment. Justin Madders, Emma Lewell-Buck, Yvonne Fovargue and whip Steph Peacock were among 17 Labour MPs who rebelled against the leadership on Thursday night.
What was fascinating yesterday was that within seconds of the Benn amendment being defeated, Corbyn’s office put out a statement that he had had a ‘constructive’ discussion with Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson, who have a People’s Vote amendment lined up for the right moment. Corbyn also swiftly approached Plaid and other parties to discuss Brexit and a public vote. Let’s see if Kyle-Wilson is tabled to amend the meaningful vote 3, or if they wait for it to fall and to seize their moment in the indicative votes.
Former Liberal leader David Steel has been suspended by the Scottish Lib Dems, pending an investigation into his testimony to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse about ex-MP Sir Cyril Smith. Thanks to the federal nature of the party, it was up to ‘the office bearers’ north of the border rather than Vince Cable in London to make the big call. It feels strange that the leader of a party can’t simply act directly himself on such an issue of importance, but Cable last night told Newsnight: “There was very serious concern about what he said. Serious allegations - they have got to be investigated.” (In other news, Cable is stepping down in May).
Quick recap for new readers: Cyril Smith confirmed to Steel back in the 1970s that a Private Eye story - which alleged he had fondled teenagers and slapped their bare bottoms in a ‘hostel for working boys’ - was in fact true. Steel, who has previously dismissed the whole affair as ‘tittle tattle’, finally admitted this week under oath that the Rochdale MP had indeed confessed the Eye report (itself based on fearless reports by the Rochdale Alternative Press) was correct. And yet Steel did nothing to act, believing it was ‘past history’. He even later recommended the MP for a knighthood. After Smith’s death in 2010, Nick Clegg led tributes to a man he hailed as ‘a larger than life character’.
In fact, Smith had gone on to rape and abuse young boys at Knowl View residential home. His pattern of behaviour was exactly the same, using his intimidating size and his power as a local politician to get keys to the home, just as he had in the hostel. When this week confronted by a lawyer at the inquiry that Smith could “for all you knew still be offending against children” at the time the conversation about the Private Eye piece took place, Steel’s reply was truly shocking. “I have to admit that never occurred to me and I am not sure it would occur to me even today.” Yes, you read that correctly. He was not sure it would occur to him even today that this was a serious matter.
As someone from Rochdale, I admit I’m close to this story. But Smith’s conduct fitted the pattern of many predatory paedophiles. To get a picture of the kind of thing Steel has dismissed, here’s what one former boys’ hostel resident Barry Fitton told me in 2012 (read HERE my report that at least got this issue on the record in the Commons): “He was big and he was heavy. You’ll have seen the size of his hands. Imagine how that would feel slapping you around. I was crying and he said ‘oh, there, there’ and he stroked my arse and fondled my buttocks. I was scared, Cyril Smith was God in Rochdale.” The late, great journalist Liz Mackean had much more in her Channel 4 documentary, raising bigger questions about why the Director of Public Prosecutions at the time failed to act on police requests for action. This is a story that really shouldn’t go away.
Watch Donald Trump say ‘I’m not going to comment on Brexit’, before riffing for several minutes on how ‘badly’ it’s all gone since May rejected his advice and why a second referendum won’t be possible. Funnily enough, he met Nigel Farage a few days ago.
The awful news from New Zealand is still developing but the picture is truly grim: 40 killed and 20 injured after a right wing terrorist attack on worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch. The killers livestreamed their attack online, prompting pleas from police for them not to be broadcast (pleas which went unheeded by some Australian TV stations). Three people are in custody.
It’s a moving picture, but the white supremacists who staged this mass murder appear to have been driven by a hatred of Muslims specifically and of immigration more broadly. Which is why this statement by an Australian senator Fraser Anning is so appalling: “The real cause of the bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.” The Australian PM Scott Morrison has condemned Anning’s remarks as ‘disgusting’.
Politics is a serious business but Tory MP Scott Mann put a smile on many people’s faces yesterday. The Cornish former postie was heavily ridiculedfor suggesting we combat knife crime by inserting GPS trackers into every knife. Prompted by colleague Johnny Mercer, Mann admitted it was “a bit of a shit idea”. If only more MPs had such candour.
COMMONS PEOPLE
Our latest Commons People podcast is out. Hear us chew through this extraordinary week’s events with Labour’s Stephen Kinnock (who says Corbyn is very engaged with his Norway-style Brexit plan) and think tank supremos Henry Newman and Anand Menon. Click HERE to listen on Audioboom and below for iTunes.
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