This isn’t a revolution – it’s New Labour in a blue frock

BRITISH politics has finally vanished up its own pretensions. The old signposts and measurements have all been removed. We have no idea who stands for what or where we are going. Who would have thought to see a Tory conference applauding a Prime Minister for vowing to raise more tax and weaken employers’ rights? Surely that’s the job of the other lot?

In fact most of Chairman May’s speech could have equally well been written and delivered at a Labour conference. She may have derided Jeremy Corbyn personally but she has noticed quite a lot of his ideas are rather popular, especially with the young, and stolen them.

Who can blame her? She faces nothing but uncertainty and danger. The Labour Party is very nearly dead but her own Tories seethe with intrigue, rivalry and suppressed dissent.

The landscape before her is like one of those lakes covered in bright green water weed that looks – at a first glance – like a smooth lawn. In fact it conceals slimy depths. Only a fool would try to walk on it.

Her inexplicable breezy confidence about leaving the EU makes me shudder, and I am a veteran campaigner for national independence.

I wouldn’t dream of activating Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which starts the two-year clock for our exit, because it places all the negotiating power in the hands of our continental rivals. And they, especially Germany, hope to scare all the other EU nations into staying in. The last thing they want to do is to make an exit easy for us.

I’D INSIST on getting all the talking done before taking this dangerous step. As for her Great Repeal Bill, it is nothing of the sort. Until we actually get out, it just confirms 40 years of EU laws and regulations. Already her Cabinet is openly divided about keeping access to the Single Market.

And if anyone thinks that the Bad Losers’ Party has given up its dream of rerunning the referendum, just wait and see. They will fight this in the courts, in the Commons, in the Lords, in the civil service and in the BBC.

Given all these perils, it is only wise of Mrs May to blow kisses in the general direction of Labour voters, while also trying to persuade refugees from Ukip to come back to mummy. The 2020 Election seems far away, but its result will probably be decided during the next two years.

You may not like any of this. I certainly don’t. But it comes, as so many bad things do, from taking short cuts and trying to bodge complicated bits of carpentry with a few swift strokes of the hammer.

Millions of voters thought they could have a policy without a government to implement it. They thought they could leave the nation’s fate to the political class rather than taking a hand in it themselves.

They fell for David Cameron’s promise of a referendum, which he never expected to keep because he intended to continue the Coalition with the Lib Dems until 2020.

They thought they could rely on the Tory Party to take them out of the EU, even though it had let them down on so many other things.

So, deep down, they changed nothing. A few toyed with the Dad’s Army party of Ukip, now once again enjoying ripping itself to pieces, its main activity. But they wouldn’t see that the Tories had become a bluetinged version of New Labour. Now there’s a new collective delusion, that Theresa May is the new Margaret Thatcher. Actually she’s the new Harriet Harman. I’ve charted her embrace of political correctness here over many years.

Even her increasingly vague promise to maybe, just possibly, open one or two new grammar schools, provided the middle class cannot get into them, will probably trickle away into the damp sands of compromise where truly good ideas end up in our system.