The Rwanda Bill has entered the Report Stage in the Lords and will have amendments voted on tonight and on Wednesday. After a soft-touch interview with anti-Rwanda Lord Anderson, who argues that the bill will “pass into law a politically convenient fiction which has been exposed as such by the Supreme Court“, Mishal Husain took issue with Michael Howard’s explanation of Parliamentary Sovereignty. That is – the courts’ role is to review decisions, not to make them…
When Howard explained that “Parliament is fully entitled to put things right that it thinks the court has got wrong“, Husain’s deeply thought-out response was: “Can Parliament say black is white?“. Obviously, if Parliament passes any bill, it is then accountable to the electorate, unlike the Supreme Court, which it is clear “isn’t accountable to anyone“. It is always useful to re-establish the basics of parliamentary democracy…
Just two weeks ago, former Tory leader Michael Howard refused to tell Andrew Marr how he’d have voted in the vote of confidence, merely saying “there will come a point when we will be quite close to an election and if he is still Prime Minster then I think everybody will have to rally round”. Today he gets off the fence and tells The World At One that Boris should go.
While the interview isn’t out yet, Chris Mason reports that, asked if he thinks Boris should resign, Howard says “I do”, adding
“The party and more importantly the country would be better off under new leadership.”
“Members of the Cabinet should very carefully consider their positions.”
“It may be necessary for the executive of the 1922 committee to meet and to decide to change the rules so another leadership could take place.”
The man with “something of the night about him” predicting the sun’s setting on Boris’s premiership…
Senior Tories continue to slam the government following Brandon Lewis’s admission that the Internal Market Bill does break international law. This morning Sir Roger Gale told LBC he does expect justice secretary Robert Buckland to “fall on his sword” following the resignation of the government’s legal advisor Jonathan Jones.
Then this afternoon, former Tory leader and Brexiteer stalwart Lord Howard took to slamming the government in the Lords, criticising the damage done to the UK’s reputation for “probity and respect for the rule of law” following Lewis’s “five words” in the Commons. Stick with Guido as he brings you the latest updates on the government’s election promise to get Brexit done and end the arguing…
Michael Howard told Channel 4 News…
“I can see no harm in reminding them what kind of people we are…”
Michael Howard makes the direct comparison between a small group of Brits threatened by a Spanish speaking country and another woman PM. War!
Isabel Oakeshott’s write up of working the room with Arron Banks at the White House Correspondents Dinner is filled with nuggets. She reveals the Uber app comms chief Rachel Whetstone is backing Brexit:
“Hovering at entrance to the 30,000-square-foot ballroom, we are surprised to bump into David Cameron’s former policy chief Steve Hilton, now US-based. He greets us exuberantly but his wife Rachel Whetstone looks like she’s swallowed a fly. She warms up when Hoey gets her talking about Brexit, saying she supports Out and wishes she could do more for the cause. Hilton keeps his powder dry but I know he was deeply unimpressed by Obama’s intervention in the debate.”
Whetstone’s grandfather Antony Fisher founded the IEA and the ASI. She is also of course married to Steve Hilton and is one of the PM’s closest friends…
