May: ‘I got us into this mess and I’ll get us out of it’
●Tories give Prime Minister a reprieve ● She’ll serve ‘as long as she’s wanted’
Theresa May has been given a reprieve by Conservative MPS after telling them: “I got us into this mess, and I’m going to get us out of it.”
Senior Conservative sources said there was no appetite for a damaging leadership race and that the Prime Minister would continue in her role, most likely until the end of Brexit negotiations.
One minister said the mood within the party had shifted “from rage to consolidation” following the Conservatives’ embarrassing loss of their parliamentary majority.
Mrs May went before the powerful 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers and said she took responsibility for the result.
Sources said the Prime Minister told the meeting, to loud cheers: “I’ve been stuffing envelopes since I was 12 years old, and I will continue to serve as long as you want me.”
Another said Mrs May appeared “contrite, but not on her knees”. Boris Johnson, who has appealed for unity after being named as her most likely leadership challenger, was in attendance.
She was praised for her “emotional intelligence”, with a third source saying: “If we’d seen more of that during that campaign, we wouldn’t be in this position.” But while she was given clemency by her own party, the extent to which the Prime Minister is bound to the Democratic Unionist Party was laid bare after the Queen’s Speech was delayed.
The constitutional ceremony in which the Queen sets out the government’s priorities over the course of the parliament will not go ahead on Monday as planned, because a deal to secure the DUP’S support has not been finalised. The speech, which is part of the state opening of parliament, could be delayed by up to a week as the Queen is scheduled to attend Royal Ascot from Tuesday through to Friday.
Confusion descended into farce after it was suggested the speech could not take place for up to a week after it is finalised because convention requires it to be written in ink on goat skin parchment, which takes a considerable amount of time to dry.
The newly-appointed First Secretary of State Damian Green, who Downing Street confirmed would act as Mrs May’s deputy, said agreement would have to be reached with the DUP before the state opening could take place.
“Obviously until we have that we can’t agree the final details of the Queen’s Speech,” he said.
Speaking in Downing Street after a meeting of the Cabinet, he was unable to say when the Queen would now open parliament.
“I can’t confirm anything yet until we know the final details of the agreement.
“We know those talks are going well and also we know that, at this very important time, we want to produce a substantial Queen’s Speech.”
Mr Green said there was a “huge amount of work to get on with” for the government.
“Not just the Brexit negotiations that start next week, but many other challenges that face us and we are determined to produce a Queen’s Speech to ensure we can fulfil the Prime Minister’s ambition to have a country that works for everyone,” he said.
“The DUP are another democratically-elected party, the same way the Liberal Democrats were when we went into coalition with them in 2010.
“So any idea that this deal that we have, the agreement that we want to make with them, is in any way illegitimate is just democratically wrong.”
He added: “I think that the details of the Queen’s Speech, the substance of the Queen’s Speech, is what matters.
“It’s been known for some days that we are seeking an agreement with the DUP.
“That will provide the stability and parliamentary votes that will allow us to do the many important things we need to do – not just in the Queen’s Speech, the legislation there – but beyond that in governing the country that allow us to meet the challenges facing Britain, allow us to get the best Brexit deal for Britain, allow us to make this a country that works for everyone.
“That’s what’s important in the long term.”
Senior Conservatives admitted that parts of the Tory manifesto will have be “pruned away” in order to govern as a minority with DUP support.
A Downing Street spokesman would not confirm if controversial new charges for social care and the means testing of winter fuel payments in England would be part of the Queen’s Speech. Brexit Secretary David Davis sidestepped questions on whether the social care plans branded a “dementia tax” by opposition parties would be ditched by the party.
Mr Davis told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are being given an instruction by the British people and we’ve got to carry it out.
“That may mean that some elements of the manifesto will be pruned away, shall we say.”
Over the weekend, the Prime Minister brought former justice secretary Michael Gove in from the cold less than a year after she sacked him in a bid to stave off a leadership challenge. She also allowed her unpopular co-chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, to resign. Former chancellor George Osborne branded Mrs May a “dead woman walking”, warning that she could be ousted from No 10 in a matter of days, while back bench MP Anna Soubry claimed the Prime Minister would be replaced before the end of the year.
“We are being given an instruction by the British people and we’ve got to carry it out”
DAVID DAVIS
The words “strong and stable” will haunt the rest of the Prime Minister’s political career, if she manages to survive what is the most turbulent time in British politics in over 40 years – and this after promising us stability. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
There have been warning signs along the way, which with the benefit of hindsight were more like sirens. Theresa May backed the Remain campaign, until she launched her leadership campaign with the slogan “Brexit means Brexit”. There was no need for a general election, she insisted, until she changed her mind. Social care costs needed a bigger contribution from those who need support, we were told without warning, until the policy was re-written just as abruptly.
What we have in place of stability is inconsistency, and a sense that Mrs May will do whatever she thinks necessary to protect herself. Her shift on Brexit could be forgiven as recognition of the requirement of a pragmatic position in a scenario she could not change, but there is no benefit of the doubt to be given over her about-turns on holding an election, and the so-called dementia tax. Both reversals were motivated by her desire for power, rather than what was best for the country.
Mrs May’s self-interest was again to the fore at the weekend as her advisers paid the price for electoral failure, following the threat of a leadership challenge if the Prime Minister did not remove them. And now we have Mrs May attempting to negotiate a deal with the DUP … to keep her in power.
However, this scrambling around to find a way of securing a Commons majority is likely to be her undoing. While the DUP is popular in Northern Ireland, many in the rest of the UK will find the party’s values unpalatable. That includes senior figures in Mrs May’s own party, with Scottish leader Ruth Davidson and Scottish Secretary David Mundell both voicing concern over the DUP’S position on gay rights.
Others will object to the DUP’S opposition to women’s rights to choose to have an abortion, and the influence of a party which attracts support from a paramilitary group.
The danger for the Conservatives is that the longer Mrs May clings on, the more she alienates the electorate, and the more attractive an opposition Jeremy Corbyn becomes. And with a further general election looking likely, the Prime Minister’s desperate measures are storing up trouble.
Mrs May told her MPS yesterday that she would serve them as long as they want her. As the full consequences of a deal with the DUP become clear, she is likely to find that her own future, like most of her recent actions, doesn’t have many prospects beyond the short-term.
“The Conductors pledge themselves for impartiality, firmness and independence... Their first desire is to be honest,
the second is to be useful... The great requisites for the task are only good sense,
courage and industry”
FROM THE PROSPECTUS OF THE SCOTSMAN, 30 NOVEMBER 1816