Last weekend I talked to a senior Brexiteer who rightly predicted that the PM would clear all the supposed hurdles in front of her this week: the Commons statement on Brexit on Monday, the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the ‘showdown’ at the 1922 Committee on Wednesday. “Each one will be a damp squib, but it won’t change the underlying mood,” they said. Last night’s ‘emotional’ pitch to backbenchers bought the PM time for sure. The mood among several MPs, Brexiteers and Remainers alike, is certainly still uneasy. Whether that unease translates into actually going over the top and sending in confidence-vote letters is far from clear (one source says two more were sent on Tuesday).
On the one hand I got a text from a non-aligned MP in ’22 last night saying the mood was “loyal and genuine…people want a deal. She’s not going to be replaced in short term...sorry to be boring.” On the other, a Brexiteer told me: “She’s still at teeter point. It’s 50:50 whether she gets through the next week”. Nicky Morgan told ITV’s Peston last night that the timescale was longer: “In the course of the next 12 months, we will be looking for a new leader.”
Former Brexit minister Steve Baker was among the five MPs who asked May vaguely critical questions last night. He wanted the PM to say that those colleagues (ie Remainers) threatening to vote down a no-deal outcome were undermining her in Brussels. May didn’t quite give him what he wanted, but it’s notable that she’s been trying to hug him close in recent days. He was the one on Monday who welcomed her Commons statement as she said the EU’s backstop for Northern Ireland was unacceptable. In praising her heavily when she edges more towards a harder position, Baker can look loyal but very much on his own terms. Fresh moves to prep for no-deal have pleased Eurosceps too (see below).
May’s answer to Philip Davies yesterday was also a sign however that she still wants her Chequers compromise plan to stick to a common EU/UK rulebook that many Brexiteers despise. She said 17m Leave voters would recognise her Brexit deal was what they voted for, but added it would also ensure the economy was protected. Still, one senior MP points out to me that the DUP is having just as much influence as the Cabinet right now. It was their refusal to get turned over again on the ‘backstop’ that has hardened May’s position, they said. As for the PM’s position, vice chairman James Cleverly was asked on ITV’s GMB programme this morning if she was ‘vulnerable’ after the past few days. “I’m not convinced that’s the case,” he said. Unconvincingly.
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab takes departmental questions in the Commons this morning, and many MPs will be looking for any fresh developments on preparations for a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Raab told the Cabinet on Tuesday that Whitehall departments needed to step up their efforts next month and move “from warning businesses to telling them to act”. The key date is November 12, when MPs return from a short Commons recess and the Government is planning a rolling programme of no-deal legislation.
The Times and Guardian carry almost identical quotes from a senior government figure warning that the crunch is coming. “We’re about to introduce no-deal legislation very, very soon. We have to crack on because it will all need royal assent before we leave. Then there will be an awful lot to discuss and it will concentrate minds… Obviously we don’t want to upset the negotiations, but the clock is ticking and it will get harder and harder the later we leave it”. A clutch of selected Cabinet ministers is expected to be given further updates on the Brexit talks guidelines this morning, though when I asked No.10 about this yesterday the PM’s spokesman was not aware of any such event.
At the 1922 Committee, May told Edward Leigh it would be up to 650 MPs to decide the next steps if her deal was voted down. That led some Remainers to get excited that she’d left open the prospect of the Commons then backing a second referendum. Yet as I’ve said before it’s unclear how Parliament could enact such a plan without Government approval.
As for the ‘meaningful’ vote, there are lots of MPs ready to reject any deal May hammers out with the EU. But will Tory Remainers back an amendment that includes Labour’s idea of ‘a customs union’ (John McDonnell confirmed on Today that it would be ‘permanent’) and a new ‘single market relationship’? Yesterday, Oliver Letwin (a key go-between for Remainers and the government) floated the idea of a ‘smorgasbord’ approach where MPs pass non-binding votes on various options and then vote on May’s deal. The non-binding bit may be a stretch for Labour, but it is hard to tie a PM’s hands on an international treaty.
In what looks like a plot line rejected by the writers of ‘Bodyguard’, Theresa May yesterday unilaterally decided to appoint ‘the securocrat’s securocrat’ Sir Mark Sedwill as her Cabinet Secretary. The post of the nation’s most senior civil servant is always in the gift of the Prime Minister, yet this was an appointment made without a formal recruitment process. And just as curiously, Sir Mark will continue to act as the PM’s full-time National Security Advisor too. When I asked No.10 yesterday why both jobs were not separated out (they are kind of huge in their own right), the PM’s spokesman said: “He’s been successfully filling both roles since June”. So that’s OK then. The need not to change horses (Sedwill has been acting CabSec since Sir Jeremy Heywood stepped aside for cancer treatment this year) amid the ‘emergency’ of Brexit is another reason cited by May’s allies.
No one doubts Sedwill’s ability, and the fact that he’s the first non-Treasury civil servant to get the post in a century is not really the issue. The problem for some in Whitehall (and Westminster) is the signal sent by the lack of due process, and the intertwining of the domestic and security roles (why couldn’t one of his very able deputies, Madeleine Alessandri or Richard Moore, step up to the NSA job?) The Times rightly splashes the story and has a very telling quote from one source: “We have a prime minister who is incredibly shy, and she basically needs people who she knows. She’s known Mark from Home Office days and as national security adviser and knows he is someone she can work with. A more secure, confident prime minister might have said, ‘Let me throw the net a bit wider’.”
Security as it affects people’s daily lives often depends on local policing and today’s devastating report by the Home Affairs Committee lays bare the impact of years of cuts under May. Meanwhile, the interaction between politics and security was starkly underlined by the pipe bombs (containing shards of glass) sent to the Clintons, Barack Obama and CNN yesterday. Donald Trump tried to hold a more restrained rally shortly afterwards, but he still managed to actually suggest the media brought such attacks on itself. The man who famously talked of ‘crooked Hillary’ and ‘fake news’ broadcasters said it was up to the media to “set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories”. Hello kettle, meet pot.
Enjoy the awe and wonder on this young boy’s face as he slowly realises he’s going to watch his beloved Celtic play in Germany tonight. ‘No we’re not’ is a lovely phrase that you’ll be saying for the rest of the day.
Stella Creasy and Conor McGinn hugged each other last night as the Commons backed their amendment that nudges Northern Ireland a little further towards liberalising abortion and gay rights in line with the rest of the UK. The 90-strong majority was all the sweeter after Government whips had earlier tried to prevent the Speaker from selecting their amendment. Creasy was too quick for them and tabled a manuscript amendment to ensure the vote was held.
Significantly, Creasy had worked hard to win cross-party support and a raft of ministers (including three from the Cabinet: Mordaunt, Clark and Williamson) were among 45 Tories who voted for the move. It’s a long way from actual decriminalisation, but getting human rights considerations in an Ulster-specific statute is seen as a step forward. Speaking of cross-party cooperation, watch Labour’s Stephen Pound mop up Karen Bradley’s spilled water glass yesterday (h/t ITV’s Carl Dinnen).
HuffPost reveals today that at least 50,000 homeless households have been forced to move out of their communities in the last five years because of a chronic shortage of homes. Responding to a Freedom of Information request, 21 of the UK’s biggest councils revealed they are routinely struggling to find available houses for families in need, and as a result, are moving people hundreds of miles away from their work and schools.
The problem is most acute in London but has spread to other big cities, including Birmingham and Liverpool. Some politicians think only street sleepers are the ‘real’ homeless. But report on a family of seven who, despite hoping to only move away from their home area on a short-term basis, have spent two years living out of suitcases, moving between bed and breakfasts and motels miles away.
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