Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 53

If Johnson adds a customs union, remainers should finally accept his deal | Simon Jenkins

Such a concession would allow all sides to honour the political objective of Brexit and end uncertainty about trade and the Irish border

Those still fighting to keep the United Kingdom in the EU are doing themselves no favours. Despite Saturday’s protests for a second referendum and Commons manoeuvring, a significant portion of the public backs the UK’s vote to leave the EU – and democracy requir...border

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Boris Johnson has a deal. Now MPs must end the agony and vote it through | Simon Jenkins

The DUP is again proving the fly in the Brexit ointment, but it should not be allowed to decide who rules Britain

Related: Brexit: Johnson's deal's 'far worse' than May's, says Labour - live news

Here we go again. The bloody torso that is Brexit will this weekend dump itself in the torture chamber of the House of Commons. MPs will be asked to approve – in some fashion or other – the Brexit deal reached by Boris Johnson in Brussels. It is now surely clear that the deal comes as close as is feasible to a work...

Britain

Trump is right to take troops out of Syria. Now they must leave Iraq and Afghanistan | Simon Jenkins

The president’s motive for abandoning the Kurds is unclear, but the continued US presence in foreign wars is a disaster

Donald Trump is right to extricate the US from Syria. American troops have no strategic reason to be in that country. If they stayed any longer they would only be sucked in deeper – if they tried to impose a sort of peace, they would be attacked by all sides. The outside world has no dog in the Turkish-Kurd fight.

The US should get out of Syria as it must leave Iraq, Afghanist...

Streets make communities. Have architects realised at last? | Simon Jenkins

The award of the Stirling prize to Goldsmith Street in Norwich suggests the age of brutalist housing is ending

Wonders never cease. The Royal Institute of British Architects has just given a prize to a street. Not to a vainglorious skyscraper, or an “iconic” bunker museum or a luxury pad in a field, but a living, breathing street. This street is not just a street but a “council street”. Norwich council’s chief executive, Laura McGillivray, claims no higher ambition than that “new social housin...

The police watchdog’s inaction over the VIP child abuse inquiry is a disgrace | Simon Jenkins

Despite Operation Midland’s multiple failures, the Independent Office for Police Conduct has exonerated all concerned

The details revealed last week from a 2016 report by retired judge Richard Henriques that castigated the Metropolitan police over its “VIP sex ring” investigation beggared belief. That disbelief is now compounded by today’s ruling from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which has exonerated all those involved. It is bad enough that a former high court judge can t...

Reviving Theresa May’s deal is the only way out of the Brexit nightmare | Simon Jenkins

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn should steer this crisis to resolution and leave decisions about soft or hard Brexit for later

So what now? Boris Johnson’s tactic of leaving Brexit to the last minute and then serving up a dog’s breakfast seems unlikely to work. Both Dublin and Brussels have effectively rubbished it. The offer to the EU is absurd. In place of Brexit’s promised “no border on the island of Ireland”, he offers two borders: a customs one on land and a regulatory one in the Irish se...

I used to think Boris Johnson could get a Brexit deal. Not after last week | Simon Jenkins

Under the spell of Dominic Cummings, he offers only robotic slogans. Now, like his predecessor, he may fail to leave the EU

I cannot recall a more critical week in British politics. It will decide whether parliament, the law and public opinion can hold the prime minister, Boris Johnson, to account, or whether a new poison has entered public life. We need constantly to remember that Britain faces no menace to its security or prosperity. It could by now be outside the EU with agreed terms of tra...

Like it or not, Boris Johnson still has two paths to election victory | Simon Jenkins

No matter how arrogant and incompetent he is, no matter that he broke the law, the supreme court ruling can work in his favour

It’s the morning after. Yesterday was a ball, at least for remainers. But it was like the Duchess of Richmond’s ball before Waterloo; now, the real battle must commence. The supreme court did not rewrite the UK’s constitution on Tuesday, it merely enforced the conventions of the existing one. It reasserted, “Be ye never so high, the law is above you” – though it cited...

Boris Johnson has to deliver a Brexit deal. And now he may be on track to do it | Simon Jenkins

He has no choice but to reach agreement with Brussels. But the DUP’s softening position could grant him a real political coup

The good ship Brexit surges forward, jagged rocks and whirlpools on all sides. Non-papers are on the table. The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, says: “We can have a deal.” The French and the Finns have given Boris Johnson until the end of the month to show “if his deal exists”. He wants to wait until after the Tory conference in two weeks, or...

Johnson’s cynical ‘tough on crime’ talk shows the depth of his incivility | Simon Jenkins

His ‘aggressive’ new approach isn’t just hollow, it shows how willing he is to descend into rightwing populism

The thesis that Boris Johnson is a liberal in Tory clothing is shot to ribbons. His latest proposals on crime, leaked by a “Whitehall source”, are a shameless lurch to the wilder shores of rightwing populism. In next month’s Queen’s speech, he will apparently “get tough” on crime by increasing the severity of sentences. He wants “life to mean life” for child murderers, together with m...