Key points
Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May paid tribute to Nelson Mandela on what would have been his 100th birthday. Corbyn listed cabinet ministers who were involved in Vote Leave. He said Vote Leave did not cooperate with the Electoral Commission. Would May make sure they cooperate with the police inquiry?
May said Corbyn was making an accusation about ministers and urged him to withdraw it. All those asked to give evidence would respond, she said.
Corbyn repeated the Electoral Commission reference and asked for a guarantee that ministers would cooperate. Those cabinet ministers were central to the Vote Leave campaign, and he said the cabinet had now sunk into a mire of division. With the white paper in chaos, when would a new one be published?
May urged Corbyn again to withdraw his remarks. She said everyone was innocent until proven guilty. He had made accusations against ministers that were unjustified.
Turning to the white paper, May suggested none of the amendments passed by MPs contradicted government policy. One was about parliamentary scrutiny of plans to form a customs union. The government was planning to leave the customs union anyway. Another prevents a border down the Irish Sea. That was government policy already. And another was about reciprocity on customs. That was in the white paper too.
Corbyn asked why, if that was the case, the defence minister had to rebel against the government to support government policy. He said the government had abandoned what he called this “cobbled together mishmash” of a customs policy.
May said her facilitated customs arrangement had not been abandoned and was being discussed with the EU.
Corbyn asked whether May really thought the EU would agree a deal just to satisfy Tory divisions. Wasn’t it the case that the government had no serious negotiating strategy whatsoever?
May responded by pointing out differences between her and Corbyn’s Brexit strategies, claiming she would end free movement and Corbyn would keep it. She said she wanted the UK out of the customs union; Corbyn didn’t. She was respecting the referendum; he wasn’t.
Corbyn said the Brexit white paper stated that the UK was committed to membership of the European convention on human rights. Was Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, signed up to this? (Raab is on record as criticising it.)
May said support for the ECHR was government policy. It was in the manifesto. She said Corbyn had not been listening to her answers.
Corbyn said the government wanted to shut down parliament five days early. It had even given up on negotiating with itself. He accused the government of being too busy with infighting to negotiate a Brexit deal.
May hit back by saying that while she had been agreeing on the future of Nato with Donald Trump, Corbyn had been joining a protest against him. While she had been delivering a plan for trade with the EU, Corbyn had been delivering a plan to teach children to go on strike. And while she had been renegotiating Britain’s future relationship with the EU, Corbyn had been redefining the definition of antisemitism.
Snap verdict
A clear win for May, her easiest for many weeks. Her party may be tanking in the polls, her Chequers Brexit plan may be on life support and her leadership looking as frail as ever (on Tuesday one firm of bookmakers stopped taking bets on her being replaced this summer), but Corbyn could not press this case at PMQs.
He asserted it at times, but to win an argument you need more than a slogan and an assertion; you have to engage with what you are being told and articulate why it is wrong, and Corbyn didn’t manage this. His best moment was probably when he quoted Raab on the ECHR, but what the prime minister says about government policy now trumps what a minister might have said in the past, pre-appointment, and May knocked back his point successfully.
Corbyn’s best topic was Vote Leave, where he was right to say that the role ministers such as Michael Gove did or did not play in Vote Leave’s electoral cheating was a serious matter that merited full investigation. “Nothing to do with me, guv,” is more or less what Gove and other Vote Leave leaders have said about the over-spending revelations. Some people are not convinced. But if you are going to imply that cabinet ministers have been complicit in some form of electoral foul play, you have to be able to make the case. With what sounded like at least a degree of feigned indignation (she seems to get more worked up about ball-tampering in cricket than EU referendum misconduct), May pushed back hard against Corbyn, and at that point, instead of persisting, Corbyn moved on.
His next topic was the Brexit white paper and the Brexiter amendments, and he asserted that the government had torn up its own proposals. But when May contested this, with reference to detail, he again failed to stand up his assertion. He then resorted to a generalised broadside about government divisions, but May’s counter-attacks – about implementing the EU referendum result more effectively than Corbyn, and her jibe about Corbyn redefining antisemitism – were more convincing. It was about as good a PMQs as she could have asked for before the summer recess.
Memorable lines
Jeremy Corbyn on the government’s Chequers deal:
After two years of dither and delay, the government has sunk into a mire of division. The agreement that was supposed to unite the cabinet led to the cabinet falling apart within 48 hours. And on Monday the government U-turned to make their own white paper proposals unlawful. Given that the proposals in the white paper are now obsolete, when will the new white paper be published?
Theresa May hits back at Corbyn’s last question with a nod to the ongoing controversy over Labour’s handling of antisemitism claims in the party:
While I was negotiating our future security relationship with Europe, he was renegotiating the definition of antisemitism.
