May mimics Haughey in direct appeal

THERESA May borrowed from the book of Charles Haughey last night, appealing directly to the people… and as with him, a play to the gallery just might work.

Repeatedly, when faced with heaves in the 1980s, the former Fianna Fáil leader and Taoiseach went over the heads of his backbenchers to mobilise the party grassroots, acting the injured part of the people’s champion thwarted by jealous pygmies.

It generally worked, provoking a storm of pro-Charlie messages and phone calls to rebel TDs, ramping pressure on his enemies – and helping to cement the canny old fox in power.

There is no such whiff of sulphur to Mrs May, famously a vicar’s daughter. She may be stubborn and deaf to entreaties, and it is certainly true that she has made mistake after mistake – but she is ramrod straight, and might yet blunder her way to victory.

Ironically, she who wearied absolutely everyone is now relying on the weariness of the British people to whip up one final shout of ‘Enough!’ to get the Withdrawal Agreement over the line.

‘You the people have had enough,’ she told them in a direct TV address last night.

Never mind the quality of the package, let her foes feel the width of national displeasure that Britain hasn’t left the EU yet. May strapped on her Boudicca breastplate. ‘It is high time we made a decision,’ she said.

It is Dublin that is fearful now to give voice to a single encouraging syllable – even though we want the deal to pass too.