Pragmatic and dull (just like her) but Mrs May’s big speech outfoxed her critics

THERE is no exaggeration in saying Theresa May’s future was on the line when she stood to make her speech yesterday. Had it gone wrong, she — and Britain’s exit from the EU — would have risked being thrown into potentially terminal crisis.

Critics would have pounced and said she was incapable of delivering Brexit. The financial markets would have plummeted. MPs’ knives would have been sharpened.

This was against a background of what was a cynical plot earlier this week to sabotage Brexit and destroy Mrs May’s premiership.

of course, this starred John Major calling for a second referendum, another tedious pro-EU attack by an utterly discredited Tony Blair, a shabby U-turn by Jeremy Corbyn as he called for a post-Brexit customs union with Brussels and a supporting cast of the BBC, the CBI, Peter Mandelson and Nick Clegg.

Meanwhile, treacherously, Tory Remainers such as Anna Soubry, Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine were giving Corbyn succour in his blatant bid to try to topple the government when MPs have to vote on the European Withdrawal Bill later this year.

This duplicity and division were the setting for Mrs May to deliver what I believe was her best speech since becoming PM 18 months ago. It wasn’t brilliant. There were few flourishes.

Crucially, though, Mrs May did what was needed. She achieved this not through easy flattery, false optimism or hollow promises. Nor by using bombast and threats.

No, true to her character, Mrs May’s speech was very British in its pragmatism, as she, with considerable deftness, succeeded by outfoxing her critics.

The Remoaners had wanted her to throw in the towel and accept a soft Brexit. She didn’t.

Hard-line Brexiteers hoped she would snarl defiance at Brussels. She didn’t.

Monsieur Barnier & Co had wanted her to hoist the white flag. She didn’t.

While standing firm on many areas, Mrs May also showed a willingness to make a number of concessions to Brussels if that is what’s needed in order to strike a deal.

HER best line was: ‘ We will not be buffeted by the demands to talk tough or threaten a walk- out. Just as we will not accept the counsels of despair that this simply cannot be done.’

What she meant, for example, was that she is prepared to allow foreign fishing fleets the right to operate in British waters if that becomes necessary to make negotiations easier.

of course, this would be very regrettable and could cause grave political trouble. But it’s not the end of the world and she also has a bottom line. Britain will not be part of a Single Market. Neither will we be in the Customs Union.

And there will be no interference by Brussels with Britain’s territorial integrity — in the way EU negotiators disgracefully tried to do this week by meddling outrageously in this country’s internal security matters when they suggested that Northern Ireland could remain in the Single Market with the rest of the UK leaving.

This was dark politics: reopening Northern Irish divisions, by threatening the good Friday Agreement that has kept peace in for 20 years, in order to damage the British negotiating position.

Playing with people’s lives in order to score political points is utterly contemptible and those in Brussels should be ashamed of themselves. For months now, shrill Remainers have been complaining that Mrs May had no vision for Brexit. Now we know what it is. It won’t be hard Brexit, or a soft Brexit. It will be a sensible Brexit.

There have been numerous times in the last few months when many in the Conservative Party have questioned whether they were right to elect Mrs May leader when David Cameron resigned in a fit of pique after the EU referendum.

I believe that her performance yesterday proves they were right to choose her.

The former governor of New york, Mario Cuomo, once said: ‘you campaign in poetry. you govern in prose.’

As always with Mrs May, the prose was leaden. Her speech was full of information about ‘arbitration mechanisms’, ‘arrangements’, ‘agencies’ and ‘precedents’. And let’s face it. She’s a dull woman and a dull prime minister.

But this was exactly the kind of sober, mature, stateswoman-like oratory that she was elected prime minister to deliver.

one thing is certain. It was incomparably better than Jeremy Corbyn’s opportunistic and cynical speech at the start of the week when he betrayed his natural supporters by saying he wants to stay in a customs union and accept freedom of movement and zero controls on immigration.

And Mrs May’s speech will infuriate Remainers in both the labour and Tory parties.

The strongest part of her speech was her reasoned rejection of Brussels’ proposition that Britain must enter a made-to-measure trading relationship with the EU — either the so-called Norway or Canadian options. Showing an exemplary mastery of detail, the prime minister demonstrated that every trade deal between the EU and individual nations is carefully tailored to the needs of that nation.

As she rightly said: ‘Every trade arrangement is cherry-picking.’

Why should it be any different for Britain? Clearly there is no reason, especially given an element of goodwill between the remaining 27 EU countries and Britain.

This is where Mrs May threw down the gauntlet to Brussels.

Judging from the tone of her speech, she is willing to strike a deal as soon as possible.

In my view, she would be well advised to try to do just that.

The truth is that she needs urgently to fortify her position.

She knows only too well that her failure to win a Commons majority in last summer’s general Election cost her very dear.

There followed her shambolic speech at her party conference when she lost her voice.

Those closest to her worried about for her health and privately feared for her future.

Throughout this period there has been concern about her two key lieutenants: Chancellor Philip Hammond was both tineared and accident-prone and there were rumours that Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson might quit the Cabinet.

BUT this weekend, Mrs May has consolidated her position. In some ways, the most important thing about her speech was not what she said.

It was the calm, sensible, measured way she said it.

Above all, there was no arrogance, no bullying, no malice in what was a businesslike speech.

She’s a woman who’d like to strike a deal which suits both sides. Her tone of calm and pragmatism has thrown down a number of challenges.

Does the EU really want to make a negotiation with the UK impossible? Do Tory Remainers really prefer a Corbyn government if Mrs May doesn’t offer them a deal which would renege on the promise to the 17 million Britons who voted leave? Are Jacob ReesMogg and his fellow Tory ultras really ready to vote down their own government?

goodness knows, Theresa May has been through the wars. But through them, she’s emerged a stronger woman — and now she can lead a stronger Britain on the final lap of the journey to Brexit.