A monumental task for May has begun

Three months after the country voted in a referendum to leave the European Union, we now have a likely date for doing so. By the end of March 2019, this country’s 46-year membership of the EU, in its several guises, will come to an end. As the Conservative conference got under way in Birmingham yesterday, Theresa May delivered a stirring and patriotic speech announcing that the Government will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty in the first quarter of next year, thereby starting the two-year negotiation leading to the UK’s withdrawal.

This is about as early a date as she could realistically manage, and announcing it is a watershed moment. The past 100 days or so since June 23 have felt like the equivalent of the Phoney War – a declaration of intent that seemed to have no immediate or tangible consequence. The Prime Minister, who turned 60 on Saturday, was old enough to have voted in the 1975 referendum that kept Britain in the Common Market. Now, she will preside over the final act in this drama, and the manner of this country’s withdrawal will define her premiership, whatever changes she seeks to make on the domestic front.

The centrepiece will be a Great Repeal Bill encompassing the legislation needed to take us out of the EU and annul the European Communities Act 1972. This measure is to be introduced in the Queen’s Speech next year and, once enacted, would make the country free and independent once again, no longer pooling sovereignty with other nations. This, in essence, is what the referendum was about – control over our own destiny, though most EU rules will remain in place.

A new Act was the inevitable corollary of the vote to leave; but it also emphasises the political challenge that lies ahead. Although Mrs May reaffirmed that the Government has no intention of asking Parliament’s permission to trigger Article 50 (though a pending court case may test its powers here), MPs and peers must still agree the final shape of Brexit. Legislation cannot be repealed by executive diktat; and it is a simple fact that there was a substantial majority for Remain in the House of Commons. While MPs mostly now accept that the referendum outcome cannot be gainsaid, they might be less inclined to agree to a type of Brexit that looks like a bad deal for Britain. If this legislation is going through Parliament in parallel with the EU talks, then any problems in the latter could well cause difficulties with the former. It could make the Maastricht Treaty ratification look like a walk in the park.

Mrs May said she wanted the “right deal” for Britain. But there are fundamental differences of opinion over what that constitutes, not just in Parliament but in her own party. In her opening speech to the conference, she continued to play her cards close to her chest, and while she rejected the “hard” and “soft” Brexit labels, she is clearly heading for a solution under which the country leaves the single market in order to end any doubt about control over immigration. In setting out an ambitious “truly global vision” for the UK, she sounded like a seasoned Eurosceptic – even though she was a Remainer during the campaign.

This week’s conference takes place in the city where David Cameron made his first speech to the Tory faithful as prime minister in 2010. That address contained just a single reference to the issue that was to prove the former prime minister’s undoing – Europe. The watchword at the time was that the Tories should “stop banging on about the EU” because voters found it tedious and off-putting. In the event, Britons proved to be far less sanguine about their country’s membership than the politicians appreciated. But while the referendum was a personal disaster for Mr Cameron, his leadership is not being wiped from the party’s memory banks. Mrs May paid her predecessor a fitting tribute, and the One Nation programme that Mr Cameron wanted to take forward is to some extent enshrined in the conference slogan, “A country that works for everyone.” Despite the rhetorical and stylistic differences with her predecessor, Mrs May still needs to fulfil the manifesto on which he won power last year. None the less she wants to make her own mark, and has already dismantled the Cabinet he built up; over the next few days it should become clearer how much further she intends to distance herself from the Cameron past.

Whatever policy changes might be in the offing, the next few years will be dominated by Brexit and what it is to look like. The deep divisions exposed by the referendum are reflected among Conservatives just as they are in the country at large. Mrs May’s task is to chart a course between the two extremes and find a way through that both holds her party together and benefits the country, while retaining a good relationship with Europe. It is a monumental task that has only just begun.

The past 100 days or so since the referendum have felt like the equivalent of the Phoney War The divisions exposed by the referendum are reflected among Tories, as in the country at large