Tory conference will be crucial for May

Theresa May has no doubt spent recent days and weeks dreaming that the current Tory Party conference will inject some positivity and focus behind her premiership.

However, with many seeing her leadership as a nightmare, any visions of bringing unity and harmony amid a series of bitter Brexit divisions appear remote indeed.

Certainly the conference did not get off to the kind of flier Mrs May might have hoped for, as Boris Johnson used the opportunity of an interview with a Sunday newspaper to denounce her much-maligned Chequers plan as “deranged” and “preposterous”.

It is manna from heaven for opposition parties and does little to bolster Britain’s ailing reputation abroad.

Not many people gave Mrs May much chance of a lasting stay at Number 10 when her decision to call a snap general election, with the intention of shoring up her mandate, backfired so spectacularly.

Yet the dual factors of a woefully weak opposition in the form of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and internal Conservative Party enemies unable to garner any meaningful support has left her in the perhaps surprising position of leading the UK into a Brexit she never supported. It is a difficult situation for the prime minister, but she seems determined to see it out, declaring: “There is a long-term job to do”.

Support from within her own party will be crucial – conference should act as a decent barometer in that regard.