Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 75

Without Irish unification, a hard Brexit is impossible | Simon Jenkins

Any additional border controls would further isolate the north’s struggling economy. The DUP must fight for a single market and open borders

Is Northern Ireland the poison pill of hard Brexit? The visit of the new Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, to Belfast today is remarkable. This is not just for the astonishing sight of a southern politician who believes passionately in gay rights visiting the still conservative north – given how long the south’s reactionary Catholicism has been butt of...

Do your fellow Brits a favour. Stop going on holiday | Simon Jenkins

We’re addicted to travel, and the government is our pusher, tempting us into ever more hellish journeys

I’m in a hurry. You’re in my way. They are bloody tourists. My journey is vital, yours discretionary and theirs absurdly unnecessary. Transport policy has always been the orchestration of selfishness. This coming week, travel to Europe’s most popular air destinations will apparently be hell. “Security” will mean hours of queues at immigration, though the delays seem curiously aimed...

Cheers! Drinking’s good for us again – but can the medical hype be trusted? | Simon Jenkins

Blind faith in scientific health claims – and headlines – can be dangerous, especially given the growing menace of online self-diagnosis

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

That’s OK then. A pint a day keeps the doctor away. A pint of beer, that is. Yes, it used to be a pint of milk, but that was before milk was bad for you. Go to work on an egg was the same. Now it is our old friend alcohol that is back in favour. Seven pints of beer, or a bottle and a half of wine, dramatically cut whethe...

Hardliners won’t like this soft Brexit plan. Tough – we have little choice | Simon Jenkins

Few want visas for Europe, fruit farms closing, or NHS staff sent packing. None of that need happen if we negotiate properly

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist, author and broadcaster

At last the fog is starting to clear around Britain’s Brexit negotiating position. The cloud is lifting, and we can see what lies beyond. It is nothing. There is no negotiating position. There is just an unbridgeable gap between idea and practicality. That gap continues to mesmerise political conversatio...

Brexit without transition is like skydiving without insurance | Simon Jenkins

Britain is going to leave the EU, as commanded by the electorate. But leave has a thousand meanings. An interim deal must be chosen over chaos

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Of course there must be a Brexit transition deal. Brexit without transition is skydiving without insurance. Leavers and remainers must agree on that. The Brexit talks are clearly not going well, even on the simplest of issues. The idea that in 18 months every one of a hundred topics will be done and dusted is stupi...

Don’t write off Theresa May. Like Margaret Thatcher, she can bounce back | Simon Jenkins

Unpopular. Enemies everywhere. The parallels with 1981 are uncanny. But if the prime minister keeps her nerve, she can buy time to see off any challenge
• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

She’s in trouble, big trouble. Westminster is alive with leaks of cabinet rows. Government policy is a shambles. The lobby is a cauldron of midsummer madness. The prime minister has lost her grip. She must go, by Christmas if not by the party conference. It’s only a matter of when, not if.

Related: My Tor...

Parliament needs to leave London and reconnect with the people | Simon Jenkins

MPs know they have to leave the crumbling Palace of Westminster. Where better to go during the restoration than the provinces they have neglected for so long?

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

‘Ye are a factious crew and enemies to all good government … lock up the doors. In the name of God, go.” As MPs retreat this week from a tempestuous session of parliament, Oliver Cromwell’s expulsion of their predecessors in 1653 is about to haunt them.

An urgent decision will be required this a...

China is giving Trump a lesson in how to handle Kim Jong-un | Simon Jenkins

Rather than getting embroiled in a petty feud over an exaggerated threat from North Korea, Beijing is playing the long game

Is my missile as big as yours? I bet it goes farther and makes a bigger bang. Anything you can do I can do better. Don’t push me too far. I could lose my temper.

The fallout over North Korea’s missile test marks a return to the diplomacy of dumb. The news that its infantile leader, Kim Jong-un, had fired a long-range missile “with the possible potential to reach Alaska”, i...

Soft Brexit is the only sane option. This is no time for partisan politics | Simon Jenkins

Voter fantasy and economic reality can’t be squared. As compromise will be needed, our political parties will need to work together in the national interest

Goodbye, Glastonbury; hello, House of Commons. As the tide of Jeremy Corbyn’s glory recedes, the familiar rubble of Labour disunity once again litters the beach, notably in the rebellious person of Chuka Umunna. The cause appears to be an angels-on-a-pinhead dispute among Labour soft Brexiters, between those who want to stay in the single...

Theresa May’s DUP deal could put confidence back into provincial Britain | Simon Jenkins

If the prime minister can borrow for Ulster for two years in government, then she must now extend her largess to the rest of the union

Can anything rescue Theresa May’s reputation from this week’s DUP fiasco? There is not the remotest public interest in political blackmail and bribery, in grinding self-interest, in the dollop of £540 a head to Ulster voters who are already subsidy addicts. It merely tells us what two years in No 10 costs these days: a billion pounds of other peo...