May’s final message: Pursuit of populism will wreck Tory party

THERESA May yesterday warned Boris Johnson that embracing populism would leave the Conservative Party ‘in the gutter’.

In her final speech as Prime Minister before she steps down next week, Mrs May hit out at the surge in support for ‘absolutist’ causes at home and abroad.

And in an apparent warning to her potential successor, she said compromise was the only route to a ‘sustainable’ Brexit.

Quoting former US President Dwight Eisenhower, she said: ‘People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable... things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.’

Mrs May said ‘seeking the common ground’ was the only way to defend British values, adding: ‘Not by making promises you cannot keep, or by just telling people what you think they want to hear – but by addressing the concerns people genuinely hold and showing that co-operation, not absolutism is the only way to deliver for everyone.’

The PM was careful not to name any individuals in her speech and No 10 said it was ‘not about individuals’. But sources acknowledged it was in part a message to her successor. Speaking at the Chatham House thinktank in London, Mrs May spoke of her ‘deep regret’ at her failure to take Britain out of the EU, hinting at her anger with Brexiteers who voted down her deal three times.

She added: ‘I’m deeply disappointed I haven’t been able to deliver Brexit. But I did everything I could to do that. I put my own job on the line to do that.’

She also warned of a ‘coarsening’ of public debate, saying: ‘Today, an inability to combine principles with pragmatism and make a compromise when required seems to have driven our whole political discourse down the wrong path.

‘It has led to what is, in effect, a form of absolutism. One which believes that if you simply assert your view loud enough and long enough you will get your way in the end.’

The Prime Minister warned her successor they would have to focus on ‘getting things done rather than simply getting them said’, which she said would require compromise.

Her words appeared to be a rebuke to Mr Johnson, who has made a ‘do or die’ pledge to leave the EU by October 31, despite warnings it will be all but impossible to negotiate a new deal in time.