Brexit Day 26: 'Get to it and get on with the job'
Parliament rises for Summer Recess on Thursday night – thank goodness. This will hopefully allow some space for ministers to master their new portfolios and to get some serious work done preparing for Brexit negotiations. Today almost had the feeling of business as usual about it. The absence of high drama does seem rather boring. If you are suffering from withdrawal and your addiction to political mayhem is no longer sated here in Blighty, the Republican Convention has kicked off in Cleveland, Ohio. The New York Times will bring you up to speed here.
I am expecting to reduce the frequency of these updates as we go into the summer break.
May’s motley crew meets for first time
May’s Cabinet met for the first time today. The Prime Minister told the Cabinet a bunch of stuff we had already heard on the Today Programme this morning (i.e. no backsliding on Brexit, but equally the country should not be defined by Brexit in the coming years. She repeated the call for the Government to focus on the interests of working people and not just the privileged). Here they all are sitting at the nation’s largest poker table. Mrs May was flanked by BoJo and the Cabinet Secretary, Jeremy Heywood. At the end she told Cabinet to “get to it and get on with the job.”
The Prime Minister announced that she would be forming three new Cabinet committees which she will personally chair. They will deal with exiting the EU, social reform and the economy/industrial strategy. That gives some indication as to the PM’s priorities: everything.
Labour managed to get out a reasonably witty response (a low bar to be fair). Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow minister without portfolio, said of Theresa May that: “Her first acts were to abolish the department tasked with tackling climate change; to put someone who wanted to scrap the Department for International Development in charge of it; and to fill the rest of her cabinet with a variety of right-wingers, failures and disgraced returnees from the backbenches.”
Labour leadership: Eagle pulls out
I am losing the will to live. This is going to go on until September! If you must…
Owen Smith will go forward as the unity candidate to fight Jeremy Corbyn. He gained more nominations from MPs than Eagle who agreed to make way for him. Smith will now probably lose to Jeremy Corbyn in the membership vote. Labour will maintain its consistent 100 per cent male leadership record in either event.
Joined up government – immigration special
Seems to be some teensy inconsistencies in messaging here. BTW Groves is Dep Pol Ed at the Mail. Newton Dunn is Pol Ed at the Sun
Reminds me of David Cameron’s exasperated comment in cabinet: “Sometimes I think only Theresa and I actually believe in our immigration policy”. I observe that of those two, fifty per cent have left the Government.
From the GOP convention
Sky’s British US correspondent Amy Walker: “It’s not harmonious in the Republican Party – we saw that on the floor today?”
Newt Gingrich, without missing a beat: “We’re doing better than the British Labour Party” *smile*
Bravo, Newt. (h/t Sebastian Damberg-Ott)
Nigel Farage is attending the GOP Convention as an observer. No pics or tweets yet. Perhaps what goes on tour, stays on tour.
Today in Parliament
We had Treasury Questions today with Philip Hammond’s first appearance as Chancellor. For City geeks Sam Woods, the new boss of the Prudential Regulation Authority was in front of the Treasury Committee and discussed potential arrangements for access to the single market at length as part of his appointment hearing. Clients received a detailed summary of both.
A written ministerial statement was issued by the Prime Minister detailing the machinery of government changes following the reshuffle. The detailed changes are set out in the following explanatory notes. There’s all sorts of stuff going on in here which will no doubt be the source of all sorts of Whitehall machinations:
Companies and markets
IMF experts say that Brexit has thrown ‘a spanner in the works on its global growth forecasts’. From Reuters:
Cutting its World Economic Outlook forecasts for the fifth time in 15 months, the IMF said that it now expects global GDP to grow at 3.1 percent in 2016 and at 3.4 percent in 2017 -- down 0.1 percentage point for each year from estimates issued in April…. the IMF said that the impact will hit hardest in Britain itself, where the institution cut its 2016 growth forecast to 1.7 percent, down 0.2 percentage points from its April forecast. It cut the 2017 UK forecast more sharply, by 0.9 percentage points, to 1.3 percent.
I await the OBR’s forecast at the Autumn Statement with bated breath.
Article 50 corner: m’learned friends update
The Guardian reports there are now seven private actions arguing that only Parliament has the authority to invoke Art 50. The Mischon de Reya legal case on Art 50 went before a panel of judges today. The judges decided that the claim by fund manager Gina Miller, which is being co-ordinated by Mishcon, should be be the lead case. The defendant is Brexit Secretary, David Davis. The Government fully accepts the jurisdiction of the court over the matter. The case will go to full trial in October and government lawyers say that it is likely to be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court should the trial rule that the PM does not have the prerogative powers to trigger Art 50.
I stand by my earlier assessment that even if Art 50 was put to a vote in Parliament it would pass – possibly quite easily.
Fun fact: One of the judges in the directions hearing was none other than Sir Brian Leveson.
In other legal news, David Davis has removed his name from a legal challenge to DRIPA. Apparently it’s not considered good form for members of the cabinet to bring cases against Theresa May.
This is nuclear war
A reminder that there are many important matters which government must continue to attend to, including the continued ability for the UK to wreak total annihilation on other humans. Trident ‘Successor’ passed a crunch vote in Parliament very easily last night– 472 to 117. As such the UK is unequivocally committed to remaining a nuclear power whatever the cost.
Many of the votes against came from the SNP which opposes nuclear weapons. Conservative Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Crispin Blunt, said that he would vote against Trident renewal on the basis that its huge cost would compromise other defence spending.
More than half of Labour MPs voted for its renewal, in opposition to the views of leader Jeremy Corbyn. Asked in Parliament by SNP MP George Kerevan if she was prepared to use nuclear weapons, Theresa May unhesitatingly said ‘Yes’ and that this was the point of having a nuclear deterrent. Either she has not watched Threads recently or she was being economical with the truth…
Cringe video of the day
Boris spared no mercy by the US press corps. Some on Twitter point out that perhaps it makes up for the US press corps' deferential treatment of their own.