Iain Dale presents the evening show on LBC Radio and the For the Many podcast with Jacqui Smith.
Few people believe in Brexit more than I do, but I also believe in the rule of law. Quite how a democratic government can brazenly admit that it intends to break the law, albeit in a “strictly limited and specific” way, is quite beyond me.
The Supreme Court must be licking its lips in anticipation. Perhaps that’s part of the reason the new Bill is being introduced. I’d like to think that no one in Downing Street would wish to deliberately foment yet another clash between the Executive and the Judiciary, but anything is possible.
Rather than introduce this squalid Bill, it would have been far better to say that in the event that the EU doesn’t meet its pledge in the Political Declaration – to come to a Free Trade Agreement – then the Withdrawal Agreement ceases to apply.
At least this would have had some logic to it, even if it would still be incendiary. Countries often withdraw from Treaties – the EU did this themselves with Switzerland not too long ago, when they object to how the Swiss had voted to limit EU migration into the country.
But to introduce this new Bill without even using the mechanisms for discussion set out in the Withdrawal Agreement is an audacious move to say the least. Those, like John Major, who predict that this will affect trust in Britain into the future and make trade agreements less likely, certainly have a point. It’s hard to argue about the logic of that position.
It may be that I’m wrong. It may be that these hardball tactics with the EU will result in them rushing to an agreement. I hope they do, but I have more doubts about that than I did a week ago. Michel Barnier was on the ropes, but this move will have given him a renewed spring in his step.
What puzzles me is how Suella Braverman and Robert Buckland signed off on this. Perhaps we will find out in the Sunday Times, where I hope Tim Shipman has one of his long reads about how this came about. Because I, for one, am totally perplexed and somewhat horrified.
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I just knew it. On Wednesday, when the Prime Minister announced the new Coronavirus restrictions, I predicted to a colleague that one of the big beast political journos would ask a question purely designed to get themselves a headline, and sure enough the task fell to Robert Peston to ask the Prime Minister if he was effectively cancelling Christmas.
I expected it to be a headline in The Sun yesterday but even The Times sunk to the depths too. This is what political reporting has come to. Slow handclap.
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One thing the Coronavirus crisis has made us all realise is that we are no longer a United Kingdom. The other constituent parts of the country seem to have revelled in doing things differently to the Westminster government.
In some cases, this has been entirely justified, but much of the time it has been gratuitous. Given that all four nations make their policies from the same data, sometimes one is left scratching one’s barnet at the different decision that are arrived at.
No wonder many people think there’s a lack of clear messaging from government. You’d think the four health ministers could have a Zoom call and agree a way forward, wouldn’t you? And if they can’t then explain why one part of the country is acting differently to another. Perish the thought.
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Today is the nineteenth anniversary of the event which helped shaped the world we live in now. It was the day when Islamist terrorists seized control of a series of plans on the eastern seaboard of the United States, and caused the death of more than 3,000 people.
The date is stained into history as 9-11. Next year’s 20th anniversary will be a more significant one in many ways, as America and the world continue to try to come to terms with what happened, and the consequences we are still living through now.
It’s not an exaggeration to claim that most of the terror attacks we have experienced in this country, and many around the world, would not have happened without 9-11. It’s a sobering thought