Early evening summary
George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor, has said that Robert Jenrick would be the “safer choice” for next party leader. Speaking on his Political Currency podcast, he said:
I would say that Robert Jenrick is in some ways a sort of safer choice, because he is playing safe. He’s shown he’s very – this will be taken the wrong way, but I don’t mean it like this – sort of malleable. He’ll move to where he thinks he could win, and in an opposition leader, that’s a very attractive quality. I think Jenrick will be ruthless. If he thinks you can win on the centre ground, he’ll move the party to the centre ground.
I think Kemi Badenoch is more authentic, in the sense of, ‘this is what I believe and you can take it or leave it’. Anyone who’s dealt with her in private will know she’s very robust, and she quite often puts people’s backs up, because she tells people what she thinks, but that’s also a very attractive quality.
Mandelson says it is hard to see hard Brexit being reversed 'within next decade'
Britain is unlikely to rejoin the EU single market for at least a decade, Lord Mandelson has suggested.
Mandelson, a former business secretary, former European commissioner for trade and one of the most pro-European figures in Labour, said that, even though Brexit amounted to a handbrake on the economy, it was unrealistic to expect this to be reversed quickly.
And he said pro-Europeans were mistaken if they thought reversing Brexit was just a matter for the UK.
Speaking to the Reform Scotland thinktank in Edinburgh, in a text released in advance, Mandelson said:
The very hard Brexit forced through by Boris Johnson means that we are, for now, driving with an economic handbrake on. It is difficult to see this being reversed within the next decade.
And that is not just about our politics but the politics of the EU. We are repeating the mistakes of the Brexit economic saboteurs if we think re-entry, or even re-negotiation, is anything like a unilateral decision on our part. It is not.
So the new government will have to focus in the meantime on mitigating higher barriers to our nearest and largest market as best it can. More options that benefit both sides should open up as the UK-EU relationship is rebuilt, starting with defence and security as a shared need.
Hard Brexit is normally defined as the version of Brexit that saw the UK leaving the single market and the customs union. Keir Starmer has ruled out rejoining the single market or the customs unions, but parties like the Liberal Democrats argue that Britain can and should rejoin the single market, as a step towards eventually rejoining the EU.
In the speech Mandelson stressed the importance of growth, and turning Britain into a high-investment economy. Industrial strategy should be part of that, he said, and he said the beefed-up Industrial Strategy Council that Labour is planning to set up should have the muscle and influence of bodies like the OBR. He explained:
The government’s Industrial Strategy Council will be important in making [industrial strategy] work and must be well led, ideally by someone who knows both business and government.
But some words of advice. It should not be a venue for ministers simply to express platitudes about “partnership” and for business executives to bask in the government’s limelight.
Instead, it should learn from the best practice of the Climate Change Committee and the Office for Budget Responsibility, both of which add to the credibility of policymaking because they are analytical, independent and rigorous.
Politically, that will mean throwing some grit in the gears from time to time, but it is a necessary check in order to get policy right.
It should also provide the intellectual support ministers need to make unpalatable choices, notably in investment over consumption trade-offs and choices on research funding for key foundational science and technologies.
