The big picture
Jeremy Corbyn, fresh from his formal bid to be voted back in to his leader’s seat, took a turn on Channel 4 News and BBC Newsnight, and though there wasn’t an Ed Miliband-style “Hell yes!” moment, the Labour leader did insist he was having a good time:
Do I enjoy it? Absolutely. Look at me here, I’m very happy.
And does he welcome the debate within the party?
Yeah, course.
So what did we learn?
He doesn’t want to be president of the Labour party, a role rival Owen Smith suggested he might do:
There’s no such job. No, I don’t want to be president of the party. I’m not even sure we should have a president of the party. What’s a president for? It sounds to me a bit like a director of football. So, no … It’s not in his gift to offer unopposed election to anything, unless he has some control over the whole electorate that I haven’t been told about. It’s kind of him, anyway.
He doesn’t think Smith is a Blairite (probably):
I don’t go round calling people Blairites, actually … Tony Blair stopped being prime minister in 2007, it’s quite a long time ago.
He’s not keen on colleagues calling him incompetent:
How unkind of them.
And he says he’s not sure why some of the shadow cabinet resigned:
I’m very disappointed that those people resigned, often without really giving me any satisfactory explanation as to why they were resigning.
But he did apologise to Thangam Debbonaire for the shadow minister guessing-game:
It was not, I admit, well handled … Unfortunately my wish to appoint her as one of her arts spokespersons was informed to her when it shouldn’t have been … I had a very long conversation with her and of course I apologised to her for that.
And if he wins again, he believes he could build a “broad” shadow cabinet:
I’m sure some of them will reach back and maybe others will take a little longer to come on board.
It might not have been ideal that Labour MPs watching the interviews would also have had in their hands a note from the chief whip, Rosie Winterton, reassuring them that earlier comments from Corbyn about deselection – “there will be a full selection process with every constituency” – ahead of the next election weren’t meant as a threat.
But former leadership challenger Angela Eagle insisted Corbyn had enabled a “permissive” environment” in which his critics faced abuse and very real threats. Having cancelled her constituency surgeries over safety fears, Eagle told the Telegraph:
I think he has contributed to this. It’s all very well to condemn it, but there’s a permissive environment. You can make any number of ritual condemnations as you like but you have got to be judged by your actions, not just words. He has been stirring. He needs to be held to account.
If yesterday’s “Things that are taking longer than the Labour leadership to resolve” list was topped by yet another delay to universal credit, today’s could be David Cameron’s resignation honours list. The former PM’s nominations have been held up, we hear, as “questions have been raised” over whether the candidates/chums he suggested were suitable for the rewards (and by rewards, we’re talking peerages and the like, not Pokémon Go stuff). Political editor Heather Stewart reports:
His chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, director of external relations, Gabby Bertin, and top spin doctor, Craig Oliver, are all thought to be in line for recognition of some kind for their loyal service, but the Lords committee, which met this week, is said to have expressed doubts about some of Cameron’s recommendations for peerages.
He had already been criticised for insisting that the close advisers who were abruptly swept out of Downing Street alongside him be awarded payoffs worth six months’ salary – more than the contracted amount they were entitled to.
Does anyone have a Brexit plan yet?
After Theresa May’s leisurely agreement with Angela Merkel that a rush to the EU door wasn’t necessary, the new prime minister’s visit to Paris on Thursday wasn’t quite so relaxed, with French president François Hollande insisting free trade = free movement.
It’s lucky for fresh foreign secretary and Brexit fan Boris Johnson that his French is decent, because Hollande was pretty clear:
The UK today has access to the single market because it respects the four freedoms. If it wishes to remain within the single market it is its decision to know how far and how it will have to abide by the four freedoms.
None can be separated from the other. There cannot be freedom of movement of goods, free movement of capital, free movement of services if there isn’t a free movement of people … It will be a choice facing the UK – remain in the single market and then assume the free movement that goes with it or to have another status.
May confirmed that the two countries’ Le Touquet agreement – under which UK officers carry out border checks in Calais – would stay. Also staying, said Hollande, would be British people living in France:
There is no doubt that the French people who reside in the UK will be able to continue to work there and that the British people in France will be able to continue to work there and spend as much time as they wish.
The British prime minister did not reciprocate the promise.
You should also know:
- Brexit could force multibillion-pound public projects to be scrapped, says NAO chief.
- An emergency British-Irish Council summit will consider implications of Brexit on the land border between Northern Ireland and EU member Republic of Ireland.
- MPs say Mike Ashley is running Sports Direct like ‘Victorian workhouse’.
- Corbyn adviser Seumas Milne (on leave from the Guardian) appears to have broken impartiality rules in the leadership election, the Times claims.
- Anti-Brexit paper the New European outsells the New Day and makes a profit.
Awkward encounter of the day
Adding fuel to a theory that politicians are engaged in a brutal battle over who can excruciate us the most, the Times has a report today of a “clear the air” meeting between expedient-allies-turned-enemies Michael Gove and Boris Johnson.
In a 25-minute meeting between the two in Johnson’s office, Gove apologised, the Times says:
He is said to have delivered a long and detailed account of his reasons for his attempt to usurp Mr Johnson as the main Brexit challenger after saying: “I am sorry if I hurt you.” …
Mr Johnson heard him in almost total silence and offered no comment or forgiveness, according to a source: “It’s fair to say that Michael did most, if not all, of the talking.” Another ally said: “Boris could barely bring himself to look at Gove.”
Diary
- The British-Irish Council meets for an “extraordinary summit” in Cardiff to ponder the implications of the Brexit vote. Along with Wales first minister Carwyn Jones, Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon will be there, as will new Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire, NI first minister Arlene Foster, and the Irish taoiseach Enda Kenny. Expect a news conference at 12.15pm.
- Boris Johnson is in New York for meetings at the UN, while the chancellor, Philip Hammond, is in Beijing.
- At 7.15pm in Manchester, Owen Smith speaks at his first official leadership campaign rally.
Read these
Mary Dejevsky in the Independent says the Labour leader deserves to be heard:
The political centrism that prevailed in parliament in the wake of Tony Blair’s landslide left sections of the population essentially without a voice. The Iraq war, a touchstone now for mistrust of government, was supported by both major parties in parliament, as was sweeping de-regulation, as – despite the Labour leader’s best efforts – was the Trident decision this week.
Jeremy Corbyn’s was a lone voice on all these issues, but he can claim in many ways to have been vindicated. His so-called ‘intransigence’ has now won him a following in the country at large, where levels of discontent – largely disguised by the first-past-the-post electoral system – were spectacularly laid bare in the Brexit vote. Whether you agree with him or not, you must accept that Jeremy Corbyn represents a real opposition.
In the Telegraph, Fraser Nelson makes the case for the Conservatives as the progressive party:
Mr Corbyn listed his new ‘giant evils’ as inequality, neglect, insecurity, prejudice and discrimination. All nasties, to be sure, but his definitions are vague and his solutions implausible. The Labour party has been trapped not so much by a bad leader but by its own clichés. In the few days of her premiership, Theresa May has been having fun using these Labour clichés to describe Tory goals …
It’s true that many of the best Tory reforms continue the trajectory of Tony Blair’s ideas. But the Blair agenda is loathed and disowned by those now running Labour, leaving Tories to absorb the people whom Blair referred to as the ‘change-makers’.
Patricia Hogwood at the Conversation says the task of saving Project Europe has landed squarely in Angela Merkel’s lap:
Avoiding a free-for-all clamour from member states hoping to negotiate special membership arrangements is a top priority. It will demand an especially delicate balancing act. Merkel is determined to hammer home the message that the member states must pull together at this time of crisis. However, if she steers too heavily towards greater integration, she risks alienating both the non-eurozone members and those with a more statist orientation …
Merkel also has to balance the needs of her own, pro-liberal national party support base with more statist demands for European governance. Particularly France and Italy remain suspicious of a ‘Anglo-American’ model dominated by market forces and globalisation. Brexit is likely to strengthen calls for a more ‘European’ approach to managing the EU, involving greater regulation, internal transfers and distributional policies.
Startling claim of the day
Is Corbyn really going to call the parents of recalcitrant MPs to demand a ticking-off?
My Dad was Sinn Féin councillor. When I - as a Labour MP - challenged Jeremy, he demanded an apology and said he was going to ring my Dad.
— Conor McGinn MP (@ConorMcGinn) July 21, 2016
The day in a tweet
Just the one day, mind you. Steady on.
A rare moment when every single minister and shadow minister on the front benches in Parliament is a woman.https://t.co/KK2ImZS9X7
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) July 21, 2016
If today were a song
It would be Pharrell Williams’ Happy. Because sometimes we all feel like a room without a roof.
And finally
As parliament heads off for its summer recess, we’re winding up our daily Brexit morning briefing. Fear not: we’re not turning our backs on Europe, just rebooting the relationship – a new weekly briefing will be coming, starting from next week, hosted by European affairs correspondent Jon Henley and our Westminster team.
Readers signed up for the daily email will continue to receive the new one; others can sign up afresh here.
(I’m off to start work on a new Rio Olympics morning briefing and live blog; you’ll be able to sign up for that email soon, should real rather than leadership races be your thing. In the meantime I am, as ever, on Twitter: @Claire_Phipps. Thanks for all your comments, questions, barbs and feedback over the past couple of months.)
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