Like Churchill, May took risks: but hers rarely, if ever, came off
The moment when a prime minister announces his or her resignation is always an important one historically, so it is legitimate to consider Theresa May’s legacy now it is about to pass from the realm of present-day current affairs to that of future A-level exam question.
First, the statistics: in terms of time at No 10, if she stays until the end of May she will have beaten Gordon Brown’s two years, 319 days and the Duke of Wellington’s two years, 320 days in office. In the present Brexit Bedlam it is unclear whether that will be the case, but she has already beaten 18 of the 54 prime ministers, including Alec Douglas-home, Andrew Bonar Law and Anthony Eden. If she somehow holds on until June 28 she will also have beaten Neville Chamberlain.
There have already been five Conservative premiers felled by the European issue, and if Brexit does not take place there will probably be more. Had it not been for Brexit, Theresa May could have had a long sojourn in Downing Street, especially with the Marxist-leninist revolution taking place in the Labour Party. Yet she had to square the circle between a majority for Brexit in the referendum and a House of Commons where 74 per cent of MPS supported Remain. It could not be done, and probably could not have been even if she had not called the June 2017 general election. Once she had, and parliamentary mathematics made clear she could not survive without the DUP, it was foolish of her to draw up a Withdrawal Agreement in which the Ulstermen had the most to lose.
Having lost control of the negotiating timetable with Brussels, then given away the security and anti-terrorism aspects for nothing, then agreed to the £39billion divorce deal, she desperately needed a better solution to the Irish border impasse than the only one Brussels offered. Similarly, it was malevolently inspired of Michel Barnier to have settled on the one issue that even a passing
knowledge of British history between 1969 and 1997 would have told him that the DUP could never accede to, one that was existential to Ulster and always had been. The deaths of 3,000 in that period meant he was not so much touching a raw nerve as stomping on it.
Malcolm Muggeridge famously divided British politicians into bookies and bishops, differentiating between happy-go-lucky “bookies” like David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, and the serious and austere “bishops” such as Bonar Law and Neville Chamberlain. For all Mrs May’s rectitude (like Gordon Brown, she is the child of a clergyman), her happy and successful marriage, and the lack of any whiff of personal corruption (unlike Lloyd George), in fact she was a bookie posing as a bishop. She took risks in her general election, her negotiating position with Brussels, with the DUP, with her three meaningful votes, and on any number of other occasions. Her problem was they rarely, if ever, came off.
The bishop-like approach would have been to prepare business, the civil service and the country for a managed, Wto-based, no-deal Brexit, without giving Brussels any guarantees on security, future domicile status for EU citizens, a divorce payout or indeed anything until a negotiating timetable fair to both sides was agreed. Fifth columnists in the Civil Service actively undermining the strategy should have been demoted; the rest would have got the message. The squealing of Remainers would have been loud and long – especially of course on the BBC – but nothing like as bad as it has been.
She ought also to have tried ceaselessly to undermine Brussels’ position by emphasising to European national governments and especially their business leaders that the intransigence of Jean-claude Juncker and Mr Barnier was risking their future tariff-free exports to Britain. We have seen Brussels determined to undermine Britain’s negotiating position in this way, even to the extent of Mr Barnier arrogating to himself the right to demand a general election or second referendum. There has been no reciprocity by Britain.
When it became clear that the Remain-supporting Parliament, led by its Speaker, was intent on subverting the clearly-expressed will of the people, Mrs May should have called another vote of confidence in her Government like the one she won on Jan 16. After facing down her Remainer rebels and winning, she could then, as is her constitutional right, have asked the Queen to prorogue Parliament until April 1. By the time it reconvened, Brexit would have happened, most probably using sensible bilateral deals to preserve a trading status quo that benefits everyone.
It is no coincidence that prime ministers with the shortest periods in office are also the least successful. Sadly Mrs May is no exception. One happy by-product of leaving – if ever we do – is that Tory premiers should have extended longevity in office. As for future A-level students, Mrs May might have thought “Brexit means Brexit”, but it clearly didn’t.
Andrew Roberts is the author of ‘Churchill: Walking with Destiny’