The false moves, inflated promises and negotiating errors that led to the PM’s historic, humiliating defeat
No-confidence result BLUNDERING Theresa May’s Brexit deal was doomed months before last night’s crushing, historic humiliation in the Commons.
She unwittingly plotted her path to parliamentary defeat almost exactly two years ago, when she painted her withdrawal “red lines”.
The Prime Minister delivered a speech at Lancaster House outlining what she wanted a future relationship with the EU to look like.
Yet it was made without consulting opposition MPs, the EU, Tory back- benchers or even her Cabinet. The UK would quit the single market and customs union and end free movement, the issue driving many to reject the EU at the June 2016 referendum.
There would be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and Britain could sign trade deals around the globe.
But in making this address, Mrs May threw away her one chance to unite a divided country, which voted by a majority of 1,269,501 to Leave.
This stubborn leader made no attempt to craft a consensus and find out what could secure a Westminster majority. As Home Secretary, she had backed Remain at the referendum.
On becoming PM, she felt she needed to demonstrate her Brexiteer credentials. That strategic misjudgment further alienated the 16,141,241 voters who opted to stay in the EU.
But as well as fuelling Remainers’ disillusionment, she was building up Brexiteers’ hopes, unwilling to tell them compromise would be needed.
It blew up spectacularly just after 7.30pm yesterday, as pro-EU MPs ganged up with hard Brexiteers to detonate her blueprint.
The PM’s record shows she refused Dear Prime Minister,
Your deal dies today.
So, in the interests of national unity will you please open up your eyes (and ears)
stLart loAokingNfor a... WARNED Mirror yesterday
Bto listen, consult or learn as she went along. Secretive Mrs May had to be forced at every point to share information or give Parliament a say.
Campaigners had to take her to court so she would need MPs’ backing before Article 50 could be activated.
She even tried to prevent last night’s “meaningful vote”.
Opposition MPs resorted to an ancient parliamentary procedure to uncover Brexit impact assessments.
The PM also resisted releasing key legal advice until forced to by MPs using the same arcane tactic. Whitehall frustration with Mrs May had
been revealed weeks before her Lancaster House speech, when Britain’s ambassador to the EU resigned.
Sir Ivan Rogers told staff: “We do not yet know what the Government will set as negotiating objectives for the UK’s relationship with the EU after exit.”
Calls to activate Article 50, the mechanism for starting withdrawal from Europe, were growing louder.
Once triggered, the clock on a two-year deadline for exit would begin ticking. Yet still no major discussions took place with the Cabinet about what sort of Brexit the Government would seek.
The PM could not face it. Time after time she dodged confrontation, choosing instead to plough on alone.
On March 29, 2017, despite warnings, she triggered Article 50 anyway.
She assumed she would eventually reach agreement with Brussels, and failed to plan for a no-deal Brexit.
Yet the PM enjoyed record popularity ratings as the Tories led Labour by as many as 20 points.
This lured her into a needless snap election, despite repeatedly denying she would call one.
Returning to Westminster after an Easter walking holiday with husband Philip, Mrs May announced a vote for June 8, 2017. Experts predicted a 100-seat majority.
But the Tories ran a dreadful campaign. Loyal, able ministers were sidelined as Mrs May visited tiny gatherings of Tory activists, repeating her dire “strong and stable” slogan.
She carelessly surrendered David Cameron’s hard-won, if slim, majority from two years earlier, forcing her to seek a confidence-and-supply arrangement with the hardline DUP.
Realising time was running out to come up with a Brexit plan, she finally started drawing up plans to put to the Cabinet. After a Brussels summit of EU leaders, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, ministers headed to the PM’s Chequers retreat, Bucks, on July 7 last summer.
They were presented with Mrs May’s blueprint, which they agreed on. The next day, Brexit Secretary David Davis quit. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson followed. Mrs May had failed to appreciate that compromises for Brexiteers would be easier if they could be made earlier.
But, because she was too fearful to take them on when she had the authority and public support, she left it too late. New enemies were made.
Mrs May also seemed isolated at a Brussels summit last month, where she confronted EC President Jean-Claude Juncker after he accused the UK of being “nebulous” on Brexit.
Though she survived a no-confidence vote that month, the seed of her deal’s destruction had been sown a year earlier, in December 2017.
Just before Christmas, she caved in to the EU’s border backstop arrangement for Northern Ireland so Brussels could say “sufficient progress” had been made for talks to move on.
The DUP would never sanction the plan as Northern Ireland would be treated differently from the rest of the UK, in a customs union with the EU under the terms of the backstop.
This ghost of Christmas past is what came back to haunt the PM last night, something she knew was coming and which a better leader would have avoided.
This stubborn leader made no attempt to craft a consensus and find out what could secure a majority
THE definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over – and expecting a different result.
Theresa May should reflect on Albert Einstein’s observation after Parliament’s historic rejection of her flawed Brexit draft deal by a record 230 majority.
The half-in, half-out Brexit she squandered two years stitching together achieved the nearimpossible task of uniting against her both MPs who want Britain to remain in Europe and MPs who want to quit without any agreement. Now it is as dead as a dodo after last night’s 432 to 202 defeat.
Wasting yet more time and effort trying to resuscitate the corpse, with the clock ticking louder as March 29 nears, would be injudicious recklessness from a discredited PM.
Even growing numbers of Conservatives acknowledge she is a major part of the problem, incapable of bringing people together to find wise answers in the national interest.
DEADLOCK
Britain urgently requires a Plan B to resolve the divisive Brexit deadlock, one that protects jobs and our nation’s security while honouring the close result of the 2016 referendum.
Crashing out of our most important trading relationship without a deal is a calamity to be avoided at all costs, but Mrs May’s mess jeopardises the departure timetable.
Now her incompetence is likely to force the Government to seek an extension of Article 50, delaying Brexit while a solution is found.
Cool heads and fresh thinking are needed to move decisively forward. That demands a fresh face in Downing Street, a leader commanding public confidence. Humbled Theresa May clearly is not that leader.
The sensational scale of her defeat is a Westminster P45. Regardless of today’s formal no-confidence vote tabled by Jeremy Corbyn, Tory and DUP MPs who shamed Mrs May last night will likely save their own skins today by resisting a general election. But Mrs May must pack her bags and get out of No10.
But swapping one lame duck with another Tory is insufficient. Britain deserves real change. Only Labour can deliver decisive reform, giving people hope where there is none. And that means a general election. Now.