Boris Johnson has always wanted to make it to the top, and he's almost there. The man who helped Brexit pass will now likely have the job of delivering it. But it's possible that even he doesn't know what he wants to do. Europe is in for a turbulent autumn.
2019-07-20 11:07 | News | Spiegel
And other lessons from tonight's Lib Dem leadership debate.
Both think they know how to win back Leave voters
The first question put to both contenders was one that keeps some of their parliamentary colleagues awake at night: just how does the party of Bollocks to Brexit win support from the 52 per cent?
Neither Swinson nor
2019-07-19 18:07 | News | NewStatesman
And other lessons from tonight's Lib Dem leadership debate.
Both think they know how to win back Leave voters
The first question put to both contenders was one that keeps some of their parliamentary colleagues awake at night: just how does the party of Bollocks to Brexit win support from the 52 per cent?
Neither Swinson nor
2019-07-19 18:07 | News | NewStatesman
By cancelling The Tulip, Khan has turned the corner on a decade-long binge of novelty infrastructure instigated by his predecessor.
In November 2018, when the architectural practice Foster + Partners first revealed images of The Tulip, I could barely muster a flicker of the outrage it deserved. A towering lift shaft with a bulbous viewing platform at the top, the proposed
2019-07-19 11:07 | News | NewStatesman
Should he become prime minister, Johnson will find himself in the position that Theresa May pretended to be in when she called the 2017 election.
Have MPs dashed Boris Johnson's hopes of forcing a no-deal Brexit through parliament? That's the conclusion some of his opponents have drawn from the successful passage of amendments that will require the Commons to sit through October,
2019-07-19 10:07 | News | NewStatesman
If you didn’t know it, you would think the British establishment had been deliberately rocking every boat possible to ensure a no-deal or hard-Brexit from the outset. From David Cameron’s so-called ‘miscalulation’ to Theresa May’s guaranteed failure to produce a …
The post Brexit ‘Deal Dead’, New Financial Market Fears and Unredacted Riot Report appeared first on Global Research .
2019-07-18 15:07 | English, brexit, no-deal Brexit | GlobalResearch
It's not clear if the divided coalition that defeated the government today can cohere around a practical alternative to a no-deal Brexit.
This is your parliament on Boris Johnson: just weeks after opponents of a no-deal Brexit endured a chastening defeat in their attempts to thwart it, they have blocked the threatened suspension of parliament by 41 votes, with 315 votes for and just
2019-07-18 13:07 | News | NewStatesman
The self-styled Spartans who rejected the withdrawal agreement three times want cabinet posts in return for their support.
Of the many subplots in the race to succeed Theresa May, one had a much speedier resolution than many in Westminster anticipated: the question of just who would win the support of the self-styled Spartans, the 28 Tory Eurosceptics who voted against the withdrawal
2019-07-18 13:07 | News | NewStatesman
Labour MPs are concerned that the row will spill over into their trigger ballots.
Labour’s peers will vote on whether or not to have a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Their decision comes after Dianne Hayter, their deputy leader, was sacked from the post of Labour’s shadow Brexit minister, after remarks she made comparing the “bunker mentality” around the Labour
2019-07-18 12:07 | News | NewStatesman
The party’s MPs are concerned that the row will spill over into their trigger ballots.
Labour’s peers will vote on whether or not to hold a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Their decision to do so comes after Dianne Hayter, their deputy leader, was sacked from the post of Labour’s shadow Brexit minister, after remarks she made comparing the “bunker
2019-07-18 12:07 | News | NewStatesman
After the struggles of leading the German defence ministry, von der Leyen has returned to her original home.
When Ursula von der Leyen narrowly won her confirmation vote to become the next president of the European Commission (the first woman to hold the post), the incumbent took to Twitter to congratulate her. “ Willkommen zu Hause ” (welcome home), tweeted
2019-07-18 11:07 | News | NewStatesman
Parliament must remember that deploring or delaying leaving the EU with no agreement is not the same as preventing it.
MPs have been handed an opportunity by the House of Lords to block off one path to no deal. Peers have voted for an amendment that would prevent parliament from being suspended until the Article 50 process is over and done.
2019-07-18 08:07 | News | NewStatesman
Plus, Trump crowd chant “send her back” at Democrat Ilhan Omar, young drivers may face night ban and Instagram's plan to hide likes.
“The last days of Hitler”
A Labour peer has been sacked as a shadow Brexit minister after she likened a “bunker mentality” around Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership to “the last days of Hitler”. Dianne Hayter
2019-07-18 06:07 | News | NewStatesman
The Conservative frontrunner's election could result in either another independence referendum or more devolved powers.
As a 17-year-old living in Glasgow, a city which voted for Scotland to leave the UK in the 2014 independence referendum, it’s difficult to ignore the rumblings of discontent that have grown louder during the Conservative leadership election.
Before the grim contest
2019-07-17 16:07 | News | NewStatesman
A selection of the best letters received from our readers this week. Email letters@newstatesman.co.uk to have your thoughts voiced in the New Statesman magazine.
Regarding plain speaking by ambassadors to Washington: when John Freeman was editor of the New Statesman in 1962 he described Richard Nixon, then bidding to become governor of California, as “a man of
2019-07-17 15:07 | News | NewStatesman
The prime minister's valedictory message was a surreal and at times barely believable defence of the compromises she has never made.
Theresa May's premiership, particularly its second, post-2017 election phase, has been punctuated by speeches that bore at the very best a tenuous relationship to political reality. Today she provided a surreal, at times barely believable full stop in the shape
2019-07-17 15:07 | News | NewStatesman
The prime minister's valedictory message was a surreal and at times barely believable defence of the compromises she has never made.
Theresa May's premiership, particularly its second, post-2017 election phase, has been punctuated by speeches that bore at the very best a tenuous relationship to political reality. Today she provided a surreal, at times barely believable full stop in the shape
2019-07-17 15:07 | News | NewStatesman
Even The Telegraph – an ardent and enthusiastic cheerleader for Brexit with its traditional right-wing stance and influence over conservative activists has had to admit that in post-Brexit Britain, taking back control means – taking orders. And it looks like …
The post The Truth About – ‘Taking Back Control’. Britain’s Post-Brexit Debacle appeared first on Global Research .
2019-07-17 15:07 | English, brexit, United Kingdom | GlobalResearch
by Robert Hunter Sir Kim Darroch, until recently British ambassador to the United States, is collateral damage in two battles that are part of the same war. It’s called Brexit. The ambassador’s comments in classified cables to London were scathing… Continue Reading
2019-07-17 15:07 | Commentaries, UK, Brexit | LobeLog
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
Held hostage by a Brextremist troika of Iain Duncan Smith, Priti Patel and Dominic Raab at the final-showdown leadership debate hosted by the Sun and Talkradio, Boris Johnson awaits Trotsky’s fate if he betrays fanatical Tory no- dealers. The slippery liar arrived surrounded by a large gang of anti-Europe
2019-07-17 14:07 | News | NewStatesman
A triumph of our unique diversity, a resounding endorsement of immigration and open borders, a side that epitomised the very best of these islands.
The climax to the greatest cricket game of all time began when England’s Jofra Archer ran in to bowl the final ball of the men’s World Cup final at Lord’s. Born in Barbados to an English father,
2019-07-17 13:07 | News | NewStatesman
In his first print interview since joining Facebook, the former Liberal Democrat leader discusses Boris Johnson, working with Mark Zuckerberg and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Nick Clegg has warned that “the clock is now ticking” for “the end of the United Kingdom” and that the break-up of the Union is now “more likely than not”. In his first print interview
2019-07-17 13:07 | News | NewStatesman
If it doesn't appeal to low-income voters' pride of place and identity, the party could jeopardise its chances in the next election.
Today, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell announced the Labour party would end the modern-day scourge of in-work poverty. At the Joseph Rowntree Foundation we have described in-work poverty as the defining problem of our current moment: among UK households in
2019-07-17 13:07 | News | NewStatesman
He quit Westminster after failing to realign British politics. Now the former Lib Dem leader has taken on an even bigger challenge at Facebook. Has he sold out – or can he really be the missing link between government and Big Tech?
Two months ago, on a bright spring morning in Paris, Nick Clegg set off for a meeting among various
2019-07-17 12:07 | News | NewStatesman
There was a lot to go over in Theresa May's second-to-last PMQs.
The Conservatives may have changed their thinking over anti-Semitism in the Labour party
Jeremy Corbyn majored on climate change in his questions today. The government has some genuine achievements to shout about here (as well as some things to apologise for) and the usual approach
2019-07-17 12:07 | News | NewStatesman
“Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” “Rory.” “Rory who?” “That’s politics.”
Over the past three weeks I’ve chaired ten of the 16 hustings in which the two Tory leadership candidates have participated. It’s been a weird but very positive experience, even if it did start off with my being booed by the 1,000-strong audience in Birmingham, when I had the temerity to ask
2019-07-17 12:07 | News | NewStatesman
Johnson’s biggest appeal to Conservative MPs is their belief that he offers them the best route to keeping their seats.
Boris Johnson’s triumph was powered by selfies. In the formative stages of his leadership bid, before Theresa May had formally declared her exit, he quietly toured the country, visiting constituency associations and courting MPs, particularly those MPs first elected in 2015 and 2017 –
2019-07-17 11:07 | News | NewStatesman
As the head of global affairs and communications for Facebook, the former Lib Dem leader wields greater influence than ever before.
Few recent British politicians have experienced a more remarkable trajectory than Nick Clegg. As leader of the Liberal Democrats, he was fleetingly the most popular party leader since Winston Churchill and helped form Britain’s first coalition government for 65 years.
2019-07-17 11:07 | News | NewStatesman
It was once widely believed that time was on the side of progress. But now it is clear that time is something we do not have.
For two centuries the left was understandably relaxed about time. The arrow of time, which in nature produces complex systems out of simple ones, had replaced feudalism with capitalism, the proletariat and technological progress. In
2019-07-17 10:07 | News | NewStatesman
In other news, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe transferred to Iranian psychiatric ward and 64 Labour peers denounce Jeremy Corbyn over anti-Semitism.
Trump has “legitimised fear and hatred”
The US House of Representatives has voted to condemn Donald Trump’s attacks on Democratic congresswomen as racist. The US president prompted outrage after tweeting on Sunday that the ethnic minority
2019-07-17 06:07 | News | NewStatesman
Men’s rights and anti-feminism have increasingly become a slip road to the far right, according to new polling.
Left traditionalists and right-wingers alike have often used the phrase “identity politics” to deride the concerns of minority groups and discount the importance of their rights.
For left traditionalists, “identity politics” are a divisive distraction from the aims of beleaguered
2019-07-16 16:07 | News | NewStatesman
Why aren’t those living in cities, or who die in preventable fires also “left behind”?
If you have hammer, everything’s a nail. The hammer for much of Britain’s political class and commentators is Brexit, which is meant to explain everything from social mobility to the North-South divide to attitudes to immigration to public transport investment.
However, a huge amount
2019-07-16 15:07 | News | NewStatesman
Having voted against a negotiated Brexit three times, Sarah Champion now says that leaving is so important as to make no-deal preferable to no Brexit.
Could Labour backbenchers help the next prime minister deliver a no-deal Brexit? Sarah Champion, the MP for Rotherham, has revealed she would sooner see the UK leave the EU without an agreement than see Article 50 revoked.
2019-07-16 13:07 | News | NewStatesman
Motion asks Labour to continue fighting Tory Brexit versions and to achieve customs union “at a minimum” – but does not ask party to campaign for remain on Labour deal […]
2019-07-16 12:07 | Announcement, News, Uncategorized | Skwawkbox
Author: Reuters ID: Tue, 2019-07-16 08:34 LONDON: British wages, excluding bonuses, rose at their fastest pace in more than a decade in the three months to May, official data showed, but there were some signs that the labor market might be weakening.
Core earnings rose by an annual 3.6 percent, beating the median forecast
2019-07-16 11:07 | News | ArabNews
Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay told Michel Barnier five times that the withdrawal agreement is “dead”, underlining that the trajectory of the government is towards a no-deal Brexit.
Boris Johnson and his increasingly superfluous rival Jeremy Hunt have told the final hustings of the contest that the only exit deal they will sign is one with the backstop removed. Not time-limited, subject to
2019-07-16 10:07 | News | NewStatesman
Jacob Rees-Mogg and Eoin Morgan's Irish critics have more in common than you might think.
“A d..n close run thing”, wrote Jacob Rees-Mogg on Twitter, the relief so great that he came perilously close to typing the word “damn” on his portable telephone. “We clearly don't need Europe to win...”
With this reckless outpouring of emotion, the MP dubbed
2019-07-16 10:07 | News | NewStatesman
Only Labour can dislodge the most right-wing and dangerous government the UK has endured for decades.
While I have been critical of the Labour leadership’s Brexit stance for some time, and still do not think Jeremy Corbyn has gone far enough to maximise Labour's chances of general election victory, he has done enough to ensure one thing: his
2019-07-16 09:07 | News | NewStatesman
Here in Ukania, where I’ve been for the past week, many things are going on: Wimbledon tennis, the cricket World Cup, the British Formula 1 Grand Prix, the Brexit fiasco, the shitty drama that is the Tory party leadership contest, revived interest in the “friendship” between the Queen’s son Prince Andrew (“Randy Andy”) and the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, and the resignation of the UK’s ambassador to the US at the instigation of Donald Trump. More
2019-07-16 08:07 | articles 2015, Leading Article | CounterPunch
Plus, Tory candidates declare Irish backstop dead, Khan rejects the Tulip tower and Italian police seize far-right weapons stash.
“Don't take the bait”
The four Democratic congresswomen targeted by Donald Trump’s racist attacks have dismissed his remarks as a “disruption and a distraction” and have urged Americans “not to take the bait”. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan
2019-07-16 06:07 | News | NewStatesman
At the last debate of the campaign, the frontrunner ruled out two of the only possible compromises on the Irish backstop.
Will Boris Johnson compromise on Brexit? As the frontrunner edges closer to Downing Street, that is the hope, if not the expectation, of a fair number of his supporters in Parliament. They believe that, once safely in office, Johnson will
2019-07-15 19:07 | News | NewStatesman
Ultimately, the number of potential confidence rebels on both sides of the Commons is tiny. Timing, more than anything else, will be crucial.
Can Parliament stop a no-deal Brexit in autumn? With Boris Johnson looking likely to win the Conservative leadership election on a platform of leaving the EU on 31 October, "do or die," this is now one of the
2019-07-15 16:07 | News | NewStatesman
If one thing that Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have just demonstrated in the Darroch affair – it is that the UK’s postwar self-image has been all but destroyed in full view.
I wrote about such events occurring in The …
The post The Darroch Affair: Brexit Britain Losing Control appeared first on Global Research .
2019-07-15 15:07 | English, Boris Johnson, brexit | GlobalResearch
The approach broadly worked for Johnson as London mayor, but there are difficulties in porting it over to Downing Street.
How will Boris Johnson run Downing Street? In answering this question, both his close allies and his more recent supporters cite City Hall , where despite an admitted lack of focus on detail and drive, mayor Johnson was still able to carry
2019-07-15 14:07 | News | NewStatesman
The most effective way to fight Boris Johnson's politics of division is to let BAME people speak for themselves.
I am proud to be a part of Labour’s radical movement and buoyed by the 2017 intake that elected the greatest proportion of BAME Labour MPs to date. However, there is much ground yet to cover. All-women shortlists have been successful in
2019-07-15 14:07 | News | NewStatesman
With a divisive Brexit policy and no majority, the frontrunner to succeed Theresa May cannot afford to get his choice of enforcer wrong.
Once the race to succeed Theresa May concludes, and the purge of both the cabinet and the lower ministerial ranks begins, the infighting on the Conservative benches will make the unity and message discipline of the Parliamentary Labour
2019-07-15 12:07 | News | NewStatesman
It is likely that if there is another Conservative government after the next election, it will have been kept in office only by English voters.
How do you solve a problem like Boris Johnson? Guto Bebb, the Conservative MP for Aberconwy, has one solution: early retirement. He has revealed that he has found himself unable to back either Boris Johnson or Jeremy
2019-07-15 09:07 | News | NewStatesman
If there is another Conservative government after the next election, it will likely have been kept in office only by English voters.
How do you solve a problem like Boris Johnson? Guto Bebb, the Conservative MP for Aberconwy, has one solution: early retirement. He has revealed that he has found himself unable to back either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt's candidacies
2019-07-15 09:07 | News | NewStatesman