A leader with no party: the fate of every ruler who ignores the plebs
HERE in the Westminster citadel, behind the spiked railings which keep impudent plebeians at bay, Theresa May aimed for blithe imperturbability. Though a bit puffy round the eyes, she essayed droll mastery and even a smile.
There was a wobble under her left heel as she approached the Commons despatch box at one point, but her voice did not crack too much as she spoke of ‘harmonisation’ (such a Brussels word) and of the ‘unity’ (ha!) in her Cabinet’s plans for ‘an orderly Brexit’.
Orderly? Beyond Parliament Square’s bleached grass, in the world outside bulletproof motorcades and their close-clunk doors, she had just been strafed by two explosive Cabinet resignations. Conservative volunteers were going on strike, sickened were they by her wet Brexit. The bookies were pricing her likely successors.
Only in the alternative, delusional realm of high politics, where they lose sight of democracy, could that seem ‘orderly’.
David Davis’s resignation late on Sunday came too late for the first-edition front pages but it led the morning bulletins as night yielded to another cloudless dawn. In this mad heatwave, the sun was soon an orb of fury in the heavens. Cue the film music from some Clint Eastwood rattle-snaker.
Then came another walkout by a Brexit true believer: tidy, bloke-next- door Steve Baker, one of Mr Davis’s under-ministers. The snake rattling increased in intensity a little.
DD did a Radio 4 interview. He was gracious, emollient, though Lord knows No 10 had treated him badly with its bragging about ministers having to get minicabs from Chequers if they quit.
He had told Mrs May he was going to be ‘the odd man out’ but he hoped she would eventually be proved right and he wrong.
This was not a man set on revenge. He was a man who had been simply pushed beyond all reasonable endurance.
Ditto Mr Baker. Interviewed on BBC TV, he was a model of restraint, not seeking Mrs May’s demise. He just politely – only made it more devastating – pointed out that ministers had been ‘blindsided’ by a secret policy plot from 10 Downing Street.
You do not run a democratically elected government like that. Such deception is only done at the instruction of a Prime Minister and a Cabinet Secretary. Boris Johnson, at that point
still Foreign Secretary, was said to be proceeding with his schedule of a Cobra meeting (to discuss the Salisbury Novichok death) and attending a London meeting of the Western Balkans summit.
MPs were still arriving at the Commons after their trips down from the constituencies when they heard Mr Davis’s job as Brexit Secretary had gone to the reliably proBrexit Dominic Raab. This stilled the boat a little.
But Andrea Jenkyns (Con, Morley & Outwood) was calling on Boris to resign: ‘Let’s make it a hat-trick! Time for true Brexiteers to make it happen.’
This drew flak from a May loyalist, Simon Hoare (N Dorset), who accused Miss Jenkyns of ‘vacuity’.
Small fires? On normal days they are easily extinguished. On hot days they can lead to conflagrations, as we have seen in this drought.
Mrs May was facing an earlyevening showdown with Tory MPs. Before that: a statement to the whole Commons. There was no avoiding it. At 2.30pm we heard that Boris had cancelled his engagements. Ominous? SHORTLY before a darkblue suited Mrs May entered the Chamber at 3.28pm, word arrived from Downing Street that Miss Jenkyns had her wish: the hat-trick ball had been bowled and Boris had indeed quit. ‘He’s gone!’ went yelps along the press corridor underneath Big Ben. Reporters gathered notebooks and high-tailed it to the press gallery.
A Foreign Secretary quitting had pushed the crisis to warp factor ten. Stampede!
Mrs May’s arrival in a sweltering Chamber – so hot that MPs were fanning themselves – was greeted with Tory cheers. The more they cheer, the worse the trouble, usually. yesterday’s cheers? Loud and frantic.
One of her most fervent lackeys, a junior minister called Michael Ellis, kept waving his order paper for five seconds after she took her place. Perhaps he was just having a hot flush.
There was less rapture for her at the far end of the House where the Eurosceptics such as Jacob ReesMogg (NE Somerset) and Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford & Wood Green) sit. It would be wrong to suggest there was a mood of assassination in the room, as there was for Margaret Thatcher after Geoffrey Howe’s resignation. It was sadder than that: the Leavers just seemed baffled that she had capitulated to Brussels.
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn had a good crack about how ministers did not quit at Chequers immediately because they knew there would be no public transport to get them home owing to the Tories’ bus cuts. This won a laugh. Mrs May won more, but they were directed at her in mockery. ‘When are yOU going?’ shouted a woman’s voice. I think it was from the Labour side but cannot be sure.
Boris and DD were absent. Sir Vince Cable, Lib Dem leader, congratulated Mrs May ‘for effectively killing off any US-UK trade agreement’. He did not mean it sarcastically. He really was delighted that we might not be doing more business with America.
Mrs May tried to claim her Chequers agreement (‘the ‘ Chequers disagreement’ as it was called by others) would secure wonderful trading rights.
Few outside the Cabinet can really believe the measure is anything but a damp phutt.
‘She has the vast majority of the country behind her,’ honked Remainer Nicky Morgan (Con, Loughborough). Europhile hearty Ed Vaizey (Con, Wantage) gave a booming ‘hear-hear’ but few others bought Mrs Morgan’s theory.
Mr Vaizey was soon shouting ‘rubbish! rubbish!’ when Brexiteer Peter Bone (Con, Wellingborough) dolefully reported that his local Tory activists felt so betrayed by Mrs May that for the first time ever they had refused to go campaigning for the party.
A leader with no party: it is the fate of every ruler since Rome who has tried to ignore the plebs.