It’s been a crushing test for the former New Iron Lady
In January last year, Theresa May gave a speech setting forth her demands for the Brexit negotiations. It was stirring stuff – as was reflected in the next day’s headlines. “May to EU: Give Us Fair Deal or You’ll Be Crushed,” proclaimed The Times. “May’s Brexit Threat to Europe,” announced The Guardian. The most impressed, though, was the Daily Mail. “Steel of the New Iron Lady,” trumpeted its front page.
Mrs May, it went on, had “put Cameron’s feeble negotiations to shame with an ultimatum to Brussels: We’ll walk away from a bad deal – and make EU pay.”
Yes, that really was the mood of the time. Less than two years ago, it was. What a wild, wild ride it’s been. Yesterday the Prime Minister made a statement to MPS on her latest progress. Gamely she insisted that her proposed deal passed each of the “six tests” Labour had set. She rattled through them, one by one. “Does it ensure a strong and collaborative future relationship? Yes!” she cried.
“Does it ensure the fair management of migration in the interests of the economy? Yes!”
The idea was that her own MPS would join in, and shout “Yes!” at the same time she did. Unfortunately for her, however, barely half of them did – and so they were comfortably drowned out by all the Labour MPS bellowing “No!”
The backbench Brexiteers sounded no happier than they did last week. Iain Duncan Smith told Mrs May that “none of this is at all workable”. Boris Johnson told her it “makes a complete nonsense of Brexit”.
Sir Bill Cash told her he planned to launch an inquiry into the Government’s handling of the negotiations (“Oooooooh!” cooed Labour). And Dominic Raab – who until last week was Mrs May’s Brexit secretary – told her that people had voted to “take back democratic control [but] this deal gives even more away.” (While we’re on the subject of Mr Raab: an apology. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realise that he’s the absolute spitting image of Hugh Laurie’s Lieutenant George from Blackadder Goes Forth. Check it out. It’s the goggling stare.
Mr Raab’s demeanour, of course, is somewhat less jaunty than George’s. He did not, for example, beg Mrs May’s permission to shout “BRAVO!” at an annoyingly loud volume.) Still, a few Tories did stick up for Mrs May. “Outside this House there’s a much higher appreciation of the Prime Minister’s tenacity in pursuing a successful deal,” said Damian Green.
Mr Green is an old friend of Mrs May’s, so perhaps he would say that, but oddly enough he appears to be right. A poll suggests that, in response to Jacob Rees-mogg’s failed coup, public support for Mrs May has shot up – even among Leave voters.
Well, the British do love an underdog. She may be a hopeless Prime Minister – but, dammit, she’s our hopeless Prime Minister!