The Tory immigration policy is in a mess. They are caught in the bind between their “hostile environment” towards immigrants and the needs of their friends in big business. Sajid Javid, the home secretary with leadership pretensions, has been reportedly forced to act against his instincts and allow EU passport holders to be “waved through” immigration after the March deadline if there is a No-Deal on Brexit.
As the government appears to be heading for a no-deal Brexit, Ian Taylor reports on the conflict at the heart of the Tory party, and the dismay and anger this has caused among its big business backers.
Theresa May’s attempt to resolve the issue of British capitalism’s future relations with its biggest trading partner, the EU, plunged the government into crisis in mid-July.
The process of negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union is getting no easier for the Tories as time goes on. Alan Gibson looks at the perpetual backing-down Theresa May and her ministers are being forced into, as well as the considerable pressures bearing down on Corbyn.
The government’s Brexit secretary David Davis hailed the transition deal signed with the EU’s Michel Barnier in March as a major breakthrough. But it didn’t come without the Tories backing down from a series of positions and promises it had made about what would be acceptable.
As the Financial Time said, “Monday’s announcement showed that the EU, without a great deal of cunning, had managed to call multiple bluffs from Brexiters about the transition period.”
The setting up of the Office for Students, chaired by Michael Barber, signals that a new neoliberal assault on higher education is underway. This assault was prepared for by the government’s criticism of vice chancellors’ pay excesses, as if any Tory government has an objection to excessive pay for bosses!
Theresa May’s government is staggering from crisis to crisis, yet no likely replacement for May is apparent. Charlie Kimber assesses the political landscape as Corbyn’s Labour Party waits in the wings.
Theresa May keeps finding new ways to have a worse week than the one before. Don’t think this process will end in 2018. New lows will be reached, regarded as the bottom of the pit — and then even deeper depths discovered.
But it’s a great danger to think this means the inevitable demise of the May regime. No Tory wants to risk Jeremy Corbyn in Number 10 and the spectre of a Labour government promising change is what saves May. There is no unifying alternative to her for the Tories, and she acts as the useful scapegoat who could be replaced later on.
Brexit has become a classic example of how public discourse is designed to obscure meaning. As May’s “triumph” at reaching the “end of the beginning” begins to look somewhat premature, metaphors of divorce have become stretched to breaking point. Donald Tusk, president of the EU Council, clearly auditioning for the role of marriage guidance counsellor, sets the ball rolling: “Breaking up is hard, but building a new relationship is harder.”
The general election result confounded the expectations of the media, the Tories and the right of the Labour Party. Ian Taylor analyses what the Corbyn surge and the Tories’ deepened crisis mean for socialists — and asks how we can turn our side’s boosted confidence into action against Tory rule.
The 8 June general election marked a shift in the balance of class forces in Britain. A Tory government expected to return with a majority of 60 to 100 seats was knocked back on its heels. Even on the morning of the election Theresa May was advised she could expect a majority of 92. And the Labour right, which has held sway in the party since the 1980s and on most key issues is barely distinguishable from the Tories, was also dealt a staggering blow.
The snap general election called by Theresa May felt to some like an ambush, designed to do maximum damage to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. But the result is not a foregone conclusion, writes Sally Campbell. Corbyn has come out fighting and this is our best chance to kick the Tories.
When Theresa May called a snap general election at just seven weeks’ notice it came as a shock. She had insisted, since her coronation as leader following David Cameron’s accidental self-removal, that she would not call an early election and would instead steer a steady path through the Brexit negotiations until 2020.
Now that Britain’s exit from the European Union has been triggered, there will be a battle over terms. Joseph Choonara assesses the strengths of the different forces at play.
Theresa May has enacted Article 50. Her letter has been despatched, and so the two-year process of Britain leaving the European Union has begun. Where does British politics stand on this occasion? Not quite, perhaps, where some had expected. A few days before the referendum, one left-wing blogger spoke of a Leave vote paving the way for an “incoming government headed by Johnson, Gove, IDS [Iain Duncan Smith], and Farage”. Such claims were commonplace in the run-up to the vote.
The Tory government's divisions over Brexit can only be sharpened by Donald Trump's election to president of the US. Theresa May's woes go deep and won't easily be solved, writes Alan Gibson.
What does Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election mean for the Tories? Does it help or hinder the government’s crisis-strewn plans for Brexit? Like every other government, the Tories face not only the bumpy transition from Obama’s administration to Trump’s, but a president elect notorious for unpredictability.
