Tag: Tory

Britain’s Labour party celebrated its 119th anniversary this week. Founded on 27 February 1900 from the fledgling socialist and trade union movements, it grew to become one of the world’s most influential political forces of the left, and remains the biggest of any party by membership in western Europe. But last week saw of nine of its MPs resign – eight of whom, along with three Tories, have formed a new alignment known as the Independent Group. With Brexit and social decline driving British politics to the margins, both Labour and the Tories are now at risk of fractures that could shatter the country’s familiar two-party landscape. Our cover story this week asks how Labour, in particular, can survive the bitter infighting surrounding its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and his seemingly ambivalent attitude both to Brexit and to alleged antisemitism within the party. None of which might mean much to cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast, who earn on average less than $1 a day. In our Spotlight opener, the Observer’s Tim Adams reports on how Ivorian farming cooperatives hope to get a better deal through initiatives such as Fairtrade. Then, Paul Tullis asks whether we can ever wean ourselves off palm oil, and spare the world the catastrophic environmental damage caused by its mega-plantations. Shamima Begum is a London schoolgirl who ran away to Syria to join Islamic State aged 15. Now, four years later, with the terrorist group all but destroyed in Syria, Begum wants to return to the UK with her newborn baby.

“A larger share of BME voters supported Brexit than have ever voted for the Conservative party, although there are now differences in support among different ethnic minority groups,” said Omar Khan, the director of Runnymede. “If Theresa May had held on to the diverse seats won by David Cameron in 2010 she would have an outright majority.” The research by Runnymede estimated that around 1 in 10 of the registered voters at the 2017 election were from a minority background, the equivalent of 4.8 million people and an increase of 10% since 2010. One in five Labour voters were from ethnic minorities compared with one in 20 voters for Conservative candidates, and Muslim support for Labour rose from 74% to 87% between 2015 and 2017, according to Runnymede’s analysis of Understanding Society, an official household longitudinal study that allows researchers to look at how voting patterns have changed. The proportion of the minority ethnic vote that went to Labour was in line with opinion polling conducted after the election. “In 2017 we went backwards,” said Binita Mehta-Parmar, a leading Conservative party campaigner, speaking at the launch of the Runnymede research in Westminster. Britain’s BME population is becoming increasingly critical. Ethnic minority communities are dispersing to towns, suburbs and coasts. The Conservatives will need to take parliamentary seats we have ignored for decades.” Nicole Martin of the University of Manchester, who authored the Runnymede report, said approximately a third of BME voters backed Brexit, with British Indians and African-Caribbean people most likely to vote to leave the European Union. Seema Malhotra, the Labour MP for Feltham and Heston in west London, which is 45% white and 41% Asian, said there was a feeling that Brexit would allow greater Commonwealth immigration. It is also a story of aspiration and there is an issue about how we respond to that.

Has Labour committed to supporting a second referendum? Yes, in principle. That is expected to be defeated, at which point Labour has announced it is “committed to also putting forward or supporting an amendment in favour of a public vote to prevent a damaging Tory Brexit being forced on the country”. A second referendum amendment is expected then. What amendment will Labour’s frontbench support at that point? One possibility is that Labour will back the so-called Kyle-Wilson compromise, an amendment being promoted by two Labour backbenchers, Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson. But there are deep reservations about the Kyle compromise in some Labour circles because it would involve Labour allowing May’s Brexit deal to pass. When asked about the amendment, a Labour source repeated that the party “would not vote for a damaging Tory Brexit”. Only a handful of Tories support a second referendum – probably fewer than 10 – so without the support of Downing Street, it remains very unlikely to pass the Commons even with Scottish National party and Liberal Democrat support. The principal issue uniting the eight former Labour and three former Conservative MPs in TIG is opposition to Brexit and support for a second referendum.

On 6 February the TSSA transport union sent a report it had produced to Momentum which showed what a lot of us, Labour party members and supporters, already sensed was true. After the abysmal general election of 2015, and Jeremy Corbyn’s bid for Labour leader, I saw a wave of exasperation turn into a wave of hope quicker than I’ve ever seen before. I campaigned enthusiastically in both leadership challenges on the promise of much more than Corbyn’s solid left-wing credentials. Corbyn lays out Labour’s terms for backing May on Brexit Read more I saw an opportunity to stem the rightward drift in the political discourse, to forever bury the immigration-control mugs, to never again chase after the electorate while allowing its views to be shaped by a more and more reactionary media culture. In short, I saw a party that had the rare chance to reinvent itself into a force of principled politics, policy-making from the ground up, participatory democracy and workplace organising. Welfare reforms and austerity cuts are now widely recognised as political tools in the hands of Tory ideology, rather than necessary evils that the financial crisis visited upon us. Waves of attacks on Early Years services for example, usually administered by local authorities, are met with ever more robust opposition in local Labour parties across the country. Our sovereign conference, the annual occasion where members set policy, is growing in popularity and participation. The party seems to be slowly learning how to respond to the concerns and issues that its active members take to heart. The path of constructive ambiguity has seen us attempt to be all things to all people, quietly reassuring to Remainers with key figures making positive remarks, while in parliament Labour attempts to expose the inadequacy of the government and demands an election.

Theresa May is expected to reject calls to forge a cross-party consensus on Brexit when she lays out her plan B to parliament on Monday, choosing instead to back new diplomatic efforts in Brussels to renegotiate the Irish backstop. The prime minister held a conference call with her bitterly divided cabinet from the country retreat of Chequers on Sunday evening. Several senior Conservative MPs have suggested they could form a breakaway party if May opted to support a customs union – one of Labour’s central demands, which is also backed by Tory supporters of a Norway-style soft Brexit. Demonstrating the divide in public opinion, the next most popular option, supported by 24% of the public, is to start the process of holding a second referendum. Earlier on Sunday, Liam Fox said it was “the overwhelming view” among party colleagues that the prime minister’s deal was salvageable if she could get change on the backstop. “Now given that we’re in that same place that should be the area that we need to look to find some compromise.” However, a Downing Street source said the plan was “not one we recognise”. The Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said: “I can assure you that the Irish government’s commitment to the entire withdrawal agreement is absolute, including the backstop to ensure, no matter what, an open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the Good Friday agreement, are protected.” “The solidarity in the EU is complete there, as Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker made clear: they are waiting to see what Theresa May’s plan B is,” an Irish government source added. He said: “We have to negotiate and also agree a withdrawal agreement with Britain. “When parliament can’t pass laws, not just on Brexit but on other matters, and the government cannot govern through that, then that’s normally when you have a general election,” he told the BBC. NHS plans alternative transport routes to avoid no-deal medicine shortage Read more Tory chair Brandon Lewis emailed all Conservative members on Sunday asking for donations with the subject line “Corbyn wants an election,” though he later insisted the party was preparing for local elections in May.

Friends of the speaker who have been in touch with him in the last 48 hours told the Observer that Bercow is now “seriously reflecting” on whether to stay on – possibly until 2022. One source who knows Bercow’s thinking said that if the Conservative government was seeking to “punish” the speaker for how he conducted parliamentary business – and themselves defy centuries of convention under which speakers are granted peerages on retirement – he could well exercise his right to remain in the Commons chair until the end of this parliament, rather than leave soon after Brexit. As senior Tory and Labour MPs step up efforts over the coming days to seize control over the Brexit process from the government, Bercow’s role will be pivotal. Bercow, who infuriated May and the Tories earlier this month by departing from convention to allow MPs to take control of Commons business through permitting a controversial amendment, will be thrown back into the centre of the Brexit debate this week when a cross-party group of MPs led by Labour MP Yvette Cooper and Tory Nick Boles intend to hand parliament the power to delay Brexit – a move vehemently opposed by the government and leading Brexiters. Under the latest cross-party strategy, MPs would be able to delay Britain’s EU exit day if no Brexit deal were in place by the end of February. Voters would back remaining in EU over May's Brexit deal Read more As speaker, Bercow holds the key to the plan, as only he can rule that the strategy should be debated and voted on by MPs. Another explosive proposal being discussed by MPs would allow them to pass Brexit motions without first winning majority support. This would allow backbench MPs to propose plans blocking a no-deal Brexit. After the crushing defeat of her plan last Tuesday, and an unsuccessful Labour attempt to oust the government in a no-confidence motion, the prime minister said she was willing to talk to opposition MPs, including party leaders, in an attempt to find a way forward. Ministers agree to consider Lib Dem plans for new referendum Read more Labour deputy leader Tom Watson said yesterday the party had a duty to talk to Theresa May if she was prepared to enter into an “intelligent conversation” on Brexit.

More than half of Conservative party members want Theresa May’s Brexit deal to be rejected in favour of leaving the EU with no deal, according to a survey. Standfirst ... unknown title 0 10 20 30 40 50 Leave the EU without a deal 57% Leave the EU with the proposed deal 23 Remain a member of the EU 15 Guardian Graphic | Source: ESRC. Sample size: 1,215 Conservative party members In a three-way referendum, with the options of leaving without a deal, staying in the EU or leaving with May’s deal, 57% preferred leaving without a deal. Only 23% of members said they would vote for May’s deal in a three-way referendum. Just 29% of Tory members would vote for May’s deal, compared with 64% who would vote to leave without a deal, if there was a two-option referendum. Sample size: 1,215 Conservative party members Among party members, opposition to the deal negotiated by their own leader outweighs support by a margin of 59% to 38%. More members (53%) think May’s deal does not respect the 2016 EU referendum result than the 42% who think it does. Sample size: 1,215 Conservative party members Tory divisions: the factions preparing for fall of May's Brexit deal Read more The findings are a further blow to May, who hopes to win a majority in parliament for her EU deal, which is expected to be put to the vote later in January. The research showed that a greater proportion of Tory members think the government has made a mess of negotiating Brexit than those who just support the party. But the poll of party members found that 68% of Tory members think the government is doing badly at negotiating the country’s exit from the EU – a proportion that rises to 78% of those party members who voted leave in 2016.

The housing secretary, James Brokenshire, has admitted Conservative policies may be to blame for rising levels of homelessness, appearing to row back on a statement he made earlier this month. In an interview with the Guardian, Brokenshire had previously claimed rising rough sleeping in Britain was not the result of government policy, but was instead being driven by factors including the spread of psychoactive substances such as spice, growth in the number of non-UK nationals on the streets and family breakdown. Rise in homelessness not result of our policies, says housing secretary Read more Brokenshire said the Conservatives “need to ask ourselves some very hard questions” about why so many more people are now living on the streets than when the party came to power, and admitted “changes to policy” were needed. The comments follow the death of Gyula Remes, who collapsed in a stairwell outside parliament. The Labour MP David Lammy tweeted: “There is something rotten in Westminster when MPs walk past dying homeless people on their way to work.” A fundraising appeal set up by staff on the parliamentary estate to support the charity StreetLink in memory of Remes has already raised more than £10,000. The number of people sleeping rough has more than doubled since 2010 to 4,751, according to government figures. Brokenshire did not deny cuts to welfare may have played a part in the growing problem of homelessness, and said work was under way with the work and pensions secretary, Amber Rudd, to assess where problems were. “I don’t see it in those terms,” Brokenshire said. “I see it as a combination of concerning elements in terms of addiction, family breakdown issues. Labour announced it would spend £100m to help rough sleepers in freezing weather.

Monday’s Commons debate on Theresa May’s decision to call off her Brexit vote ended in high drama as a Labour MP seized the ceremonial mace in protest. Conservative MPs shouted “Disgrace” and “Expel him” as he raised the five-foot silver gilt object aloft. The Brighton Kemptown MP appeared unsure of his next step and handed the mace back to Commons officials, as the Speaker, John Bercow, demanded he put it back down. He must leave or be escorted. I felt parliament had effectively given up its sovereign right to govern properly. As the symbol of royal authority in the house, the mace is carried every day into the Commons chamber by the serjeant at arms, who places it on the table of the house. It is due to be heard on Tuesday and is backed by the Tory MPs Peter Bone and Sarah Wollaston. The official feed of parliamentary proceedings, broadcast on BBC Parliament, did not show the mace being seized in common with a policy on not showing protests. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, was the last MP to take the mace from its place in 2009, when he was a backbencher. McDonnell was suspended from the Commons for five days for grabbing it in protest at the government’s decision to allow a third runway at Heathrow airport.

Play Video 1:12 Theresa May has attempted to sell her Brexit plan to MPs by reassuring rebel Conservatives over issues such as the Irish backstop, fishing and Gibraltar, but received a chilly reception from both Brexiters and remainers. She was taking questions for two and a half hours in the Commons after the UK and the EU agreed a text for the political declaration on the “framework for the future relationship”. It is the document setting out a blueprint for the future trade deal, which is set to be approved alongside the withdrawal agreement at an emergency summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Sunday. If anything, the reception May received in the Commons from Tory Brexiters and from the opposition this afternoon was even more hostile than it was a week ago today when she answered questions on the withdrawal agreement. The Tory loyalists who defended her plan were in a distinct minority, and the parliamentary reaction makes it very hard to see how she will win the “meaningful vote” when MPs debate the plan at some point in the next few weeks. Here is the document in full. And here is an analysis by Daniel Boffey and Jennifer Rankin. The government has hit back at criticism over fishing rights in a leaked document on Britain’s post-Brexit relationship, saying UK negotiators had secured an agreement that the EU’s future access to British waters would not be linked to trade. That’s all from me for tonight. Thanks for the comments.