Latest news with #Remainer
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Woke barrister Jolyon will find JK Rowling a far tougher opponent than the fox he beat to death
I could almost feel sorry for someone who has such a high opinion of themselves that they liken themselves to Gandhi but find they have feet of clay. 'I identify with the great protesters in history, people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King,' said Jolyon Maugham KC. I say 'almost'. But not quite. Because now this man has strayed into the issue of women's toilets and trans interlopers. And inevitably, he has taken aim at JK Rowling. Posting on the social media site Bluesky, Maugham declared that 'for JK Rowling 'sex-based rights' are not the right to be paid the same as men, to live without sexual violence or coercion, to share the burden of unpaid labour, to escape the motherhood penalty or have domestic abuse taken seriously. They are about the exclusion of trans women. Mind-blowing.' In her response on X (formerly Twitter), Rowling countered by saying that 'the only people who consider it 'anti-feminist' to point out that a woman is a woman by virtue of her biology are those who think female-specific anatomy or bodily functions are inferior in some way, that bearing young is a lowly, worthless occupation, or that misogynist social stereotypes are a worthier measure of who's a real woman'. If you don't live on X – and no one remotely sensible does – you may not know Jolyon Maugham. He is known chiefly for two things. He was a staunch Remainer who tried to stop Brexit by helping block Boris Johnson's prorogation of Parliament. And in Scotland and at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg he tried, with other lawyers, to get Article 50 revoked so that we could not withdraw from the EU. This was soon overturned, and Maugham was miffed but still preening. Yet there is something else he will be remembered for that is far more ignominious. On December 26 2019, he battered a fox to death. We know this because he tweeted about it. 'Already this morning I have killed a fox with a baseball bat. How's your Boxing Day going?' he posted. He then added that he was wearing his wife's too-small green kimono at the time. As you do. The RSPCA got involved. Like everyone else, I wondered: 'Why on earth would you tweet that unless you needed constant attention or possibly a court case?' Maybe he thought it added to the gaiety of the nation. Anyway, since Brexit is done, this KC, who made his fortune as a tax lawyer (which means exactly what you think it means: finding loopholes to help the very wealthy avoid tax through special schemes) and whose clients included Gary Barlow and Sir Alex Ferguson, has now become a fully fledged social justice warrior. He set up the Good Law Project to crowdfund his various hobby horses and bring cases to court and, to put it politely, he's had mixed results. Obviously, plebs like you and I think that with court cases, winning or losing are straightforward outcomes by which to judge someone. But Jolyon is very special: 'Winning and losing is a silly metric,' he once said. 'We could win all our cases if we chose only to pursue easy ones. But that would be to sacrifice impact for vanity.' Righto. He will also say things such as: 'We didn't lose. At a deeply technical level we lost. At every substantive level we won. It's not a good-faith assessment.' By 2022, of the 43 cases that the Good Law Project had funded with £4 million, it had won only eight. And just as Stonewall moved into agitating for trans rights when its other objectives had been achieved, so Maugham has moved into activism on that same topic. Some of this may be driven through personal connections. But, increasingly, I would say it is driven by his absolute contempt for any woman who dares to disagree with him. In 2023, he tried to stop the LGB Alliance, a group critical of trans activism, from becoming a charity, claiming it was funded by 'dark money'. And what the hell is this recent fantasy? 'You are a predatory cis man and walk into the women's showers at the gym,' he mused last month on Bluesky. 'You are challenged and pretend to be a trans man. You are disbelieved because your penis is erect but you claim to be post-op and 'biologically female'. What then happens? And how does any of this protect women?' What point does this make beyond an assertion of male privilege? He thinks about this stuff more than is healthy and the Supreme Court decision (that biological sex is a person's sex at birth) has, to use a technical term, made him even more insane in the membrane. This thought noodle is so perplexing, I really don't think Maugham is doing trans people any favours at all either. In fact, I think he is taking their money under false pretences. The Good Law Project is challenging the Supreme Court outcome, but this cannot work. In a now-deleted Bluesky post, he defamed Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, saying that nothing he said could be believed. As the evidence on the harms of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones piles up, he has, in Rowling, picked on someone who has the cojones to put him in his place. He has the audacity to ask what she has done for women, trying to paint her as a transphobic bigot who cares little for women's equality. As a KC with a large number of staff, one might have thought someone would have informed him about all her decades of philanthropic work around women, children and domestic abuse survivors. Her private kindnesses and support are also legendary. This man, though, calls her 'a billionaire cry-baby'. He won't care what I say. He blocked me a long time ago for being 'rude'. In other words, I challenged him. Still, I have had the dubious pleasure of once being at a dinner with him. We got an extra chair for his ego. He was droning on and I went out for a lot of 'smoking breaks'. (I don't smoke.) He is now sailing close to the wind. The 'civil disobedience' that this social justice warrior is now proposing – urging trans women to ignore the Supreme Court ruling and use women's toilets – is an actual threat to women and their safety. He equates single-sex spaces as being close to fascism. An intervention needs to be made. He needs to lie down in a darkened room for a bit. With an angry fox in it. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Spectator
16-05-2025
- Business
- Spectator
Britain could pay a big price for Starmer's ‘EU Reset'
The great 'EU Reset' of 19 May – when the first formal UK-EU summit since Brexit will take place – is rapidly approaching. Yet even before Keir Starmer and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen meet in London to thrash out an agreement, advance attempts to sell the new relationship are growing. 'UK wins £500m in science grants from EU Horizon scheme after Brexit lockout,' the Guardian excitedly told its readers earlier this month. It claimed that British scientists were 'over the moon' with Britain's return to the EU's flagship science research programme. The Guardian's positioning, like that of the Remainer lobby more generally, is a template for Labour's 'reset' and subsequent after-sales service. Britain, we're told, will benefit dramatically from access to EU markets and programmes that Brexit has denied her. However, a closer look at Britain's return to the Horizon scheme (under the Conservatives) reveals the true nature of what Labour's EU 'reset' is likely to replicate in a host of areas.
Spectator
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Why this centrist dad is (probably) voting Reform
I am a liberal, centrist dad Remainer. I desperately wish we could rejoin the European Union. I really don't like Donald Trump. I could go on. But if a general election were held tomorrow, I would seriously consider voting Reform. In fact, Nigel Farage's party is increasingly likely to get my support. That I'm flirting with voting Reform might surprise you, but I'm not alone. Reform's success in last week's elections was no fluke: the latest YouGov survey puts the party on 29 per cent. The reason why is simple: the other parties are offering more of the same when Britain is badly in need of change. Let's start with Labour. Despite being a Remainer, I am basically centre-right in political outlook. I support capitalism, free markets and free trade (which is why I don't like Brexit, but I digress).
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
For Remoaners, Starmer has just committed the ultimate betrayal
All hail Keir Starmer, who has just marked VE day by making his own history. Against all odds, this dreariest, unluckiest of Prime Ministers has somehow succeeded where so many of his predecessors failed and pulled off a landmark US-UK trade deal. How Rishi Sunak, for whom high profile Brexit wins proved frustratingly elusive, would love to have been able to announce something that sounded this good. As for Boris Johnson, who prided himself on 'delivering Brexit,' he would surely have swapped his trademark blond mop for a buzz cut to deliver this. On the face of it, it is an extraordinary triumph for Downing St, stunning all those who struggled to imagine Donald Trump doing Starmer any favours. After all, the two men could hardly be more different. Behind one set of negotiators was a dull, grey technocrat whose yearning for closer relations with the EU might have derailed all this. Behind the other set was the magnetic, mercurial, swashbuckling Trump, who despises Brussels and wants to teach its leading lights a lesson. Yet there they both were today, playing footsie across the Pond, gushing about how the deal they have struck makes the Special Relationship stronger than ever. What a coup! From the leader of a political party whose MPs, activists and grassroots supporters almost all detest Trump, the spectacle must have been a tremendous shock. Leading Labour figures like Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who not so long ago labelled the US President a 'neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath', and the UK's ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson – who once described him as a 'bully' and 'danger to the world' – may have spent the last nine months desperately trying to gloss over these old insults, but we all know what they really think. As for Labour backbenchers, few bother to conceal their contempt for the occupant of the White House. As their great leader dispensed with all formalities today, addressing the President affectionately as 'Donald' not once; not twice; but an astonishing eight times; many will have been cringeing and praying for him to stop. However, that fleeing discomfort pales into insignificance relative to other adjustments they, and the rest of the Left-leaning Establishment, must now make. For as of today, their dreams of rejoining the EU are now well and truly over. On this front, the small print of today's deal does not matter a jot. Whether it turns out to be 'so good for both countries', as Trump cheerfully proclaimed, or whether the master deal maker has stitched us up, there is now absolutely no going back. In landmark deals with both India and America, Starmer has cemented our departure from the UK. We are now on a very different path. For the many die-hards who have spent years trying to derail or reverse Brexit, it is quite a blow. That it is game over, for them, thanks to Starmer is a particularly nasty surprise. They had every reason to hope he would help. A staunch Remainer himself, the prime minister has spent much of his Premiership trying to rebuild ties with the EU. Earlier this year, he thrilled Remainers by becoming the first British prime minister since Brexit to attend an EU meeting in Brussels. Downing St has repeatedly indicated that he wants to 'reset' the UK's relationship with the bloc. All this has raised hopes among Remainers that he and his EU friends would conspire to create 'Brexit in name only'. This week's deals have put paid to all that. It will take some time to identify the various winners and losers in these agreements. Amid all the jubilation, already there are signs that some UK sectors will lose out. (Amid a deluge of cheap US agricultural products, for example, our own biggest food export – salmon – of which a quarter goes to the US, now faces a ten per cent tariff. Previously, it was zero.). If it does turn out that we have been shafted, there will be one great consolation: Remoaners will be among those Trump has put out of business. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The European project has no place in the new age of empires
As the world changes beyond recognition, Britain is sitting pretty. For all the talk of Trump's trade war backfiring, countries are lining up to strike free trade deals with Washington – and London is near the front of the queue. We are in a strong position to exploit Scottish-American Trump's soft spot for the UK to mould the special relationship in our favour. In the mercurial Trumpian age this subtle advantage is not to be sniffed at. Yet the PM risks sacrificing our strategic position on the altar of the Remainer cause. It is striking enough that Sir Keir Starmer should try to have his cake and eat it, pursuing the fundamentally incompatible objectives of a closer relationship with the US and deeper association with the EU. It is even more astonishing that the PM should do this at a time when the EU project faces obsolescence. This week, murmurings emanated from the White House that it could strike a trade deal with the UK within three weeks. At the very same time, it emerged that Sir Keir Starmer is closing in on an agreement to align with Brussels on food and veterinary standards. Such a partnership could potentially scupper the US trade deal, as it may shut out American products that Trump wants to sell in Britain. A diplomatic blowup is brewing. Trade experts are worried that the US could turn on Britain and renege on its offer of a deal should we start to live up to our 'perfidious albion' reputation. As one expert told me: 'On the global stage we aren't as trusted as we might like to think. We are not trusted in Washington or Brussels. They think we're very polite, but also tend to think we are being sneaky even when we are being indecisive.' Unless the PM changes course, we may end up with the worst of both worlds – alienated from the US and estranged from Brussels. Starmer's double dealing risks squandering a golden economic opportunity. A trade deal with the US – which would require the UK to slash domestic red tape – would offer Rachel Reeves a lifeline, giving her the authority she sorely needs to pursue the 'bonfire of regulations' that she has been struggling to drive through in the face of vested interests since her fiscal headroom evaporated. But the most baffling thing about No 10's pursuit of a closer relationship with Brussels is that it comes at a time when the EU's future is more uncertain than at any point in its history. The EU has no clear role in this new age – at least not in its current wants the EU as it currently stands to be effectively disbanded. The EU has evolved, largely by accident, from a peace-preserving free trade bloc into the world's regulatory superpower. The EU's clout today is rooted in its ability to leverage restricted access to the single market – the largest in the world – in order to compel companies to comply with its regulatory standards. This makes it often easier for companies to adopt European standards across the world. Europe has been able to colonise the regulatory systems of foreign countries, shaping much of the world in its own compliance-driven, innovation-stifling image. This dynamic is incompatible with the world order that America is now attempting to erect. The US wants to transform itself from a power rooted in dominance of global finance and technology to one that is also anchored in the kind of manufacturing prowess that can provide ordinary American workers with well-paid jobs. This demands a huge jump in US exports. Yet, as it stands, many US products do not meet red tape thresholds that exist not just within the EU's borders but across the world. America thus wants radical deregulation on a global scale. Pro-EU scholars concede that the Brussels project is threatened. Professor Anu Bradford, the leading expert on the EU's regulatory power, told me that US pressure combined with internal panic over European tech stagnation could cause the EU to lose its nerve and dismantle voluntarily: 'We need to rethink everything now. I'm most worried about the Europeans' own inability to defend the regulatory agenda; that the EU will come to think its path to tech competitiveness is walking away from its regulations.' Some Europhiles seek solace in the notion that the EU is a self-made power that can face down American bullying. They are wrong. America holds most of the cards in negotiations. The EU's trade surplus with the US means it is vulnerable to tariffs. The idea that Europe is an independent civilisation created by visionary European elites is also a romantic myth. The EU is a failed American experiment. Since George Washington, Stateside politicians have been captivated with the idea of a 'single republic' in America's mirror image across the pond. After the Second World War, the US vigorously pushed the dream of a united Europe, viewing it as a way to both contain Germany's militancy and hold the line against communist Russia. The harsh reality is that America birthed the EU. It is not just economic but also military shifts that threaten the EU. Russia's rampage against Ukraine has demolished the myth that globalisation alone can secure world peace. It is clear that Europe must operate as a defence bloc first and a trading outfit second. This will almost certainly require the EU to reverse course on integration. True, a defence turn demands integration in highly specific and vital areas. The Continent urgently needs to standardise its weapon systems. Still, the political and fiscal integration envisioned by the EU's most ambitious champions is clearly obsolete. Europe lacks a common set of defence interests. Southern Europeans don't feel the Russian threat in the same way as their northern counterparts. Eastern Europe is ripping itself apart over whether Russia is a friend or a foe. It's hard to conceive a European nuclear weapon capability for the simple reason that member states would never be able to agree on when to use it. As Dr Neil Melvin of RUSI told me: 'This is not a kind of Brussels ecosystem. It's much more like the Europe of the old days where you have strong nations as core actors. The question is whether Europe can find a new kind of structure to manage the re-emergence of nation states as the main drivers of European agendas.' The PM's eagerness to align with Brussels is illogical. Whether the EU can reinvent itself for a new epoch is uncertain. For now then, we should focus on nurturing relations with the world superpower, while keeping a cordial distance from a European project in existential crisis. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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