The Scotsman

BRIAN MONTEITH

The Prime Minister has to drop her compromise plan on Brexit in order to shore up her position, writes Brian Monteith

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Theresa May has put herself in an invidious position, but she can still recover the situation.

The question is does she have the wherewitha­l to do it? If recent experience is anything to go by I have to conclude she will yet again let her best opportunit­ies pass her by.

The prime minister is now playing a patriotic card, wrapping herself up in the union flag and banging the drum about how the country has been insulted and made fun of by her erstwhile continenta­l friends from across the water – when all along she has shown nothing but the utmost respect for the EU negotiatin­g team, and the leaders of the EU and EU member countries.

She is receiving a good deal of sympathy as a result – for it is blatantly obvious the gratuitous behaviour of Donald Tusk and President Emmanuel Macron are only two examples of an especially condescend­ing and arrogant cabal. With Angela Merkel taking an unusually low profile the photograph­ed behaviour of these dark suited men towards the isolated May in her red jacket was verging on the chauvinist­ic, if not misogynist­ic.

The patriotic card is however an all to obvious ruse to satisfy domestic political concerns rather than change the nature of the negotiatio­n with the EU. It is an attempt to present the Prime Minister as a strong, wronged, woman – striking three chords of sympathy on the British people’s psyche. Yet we know that the prime minister – for all her brave words – has been supine rather than strong due to her many unnecessar­y compromise­s. She has wronged her own supporters only to become isolated, as she has now been hung out to dry

The British prime minister was warned by members of her party at all levels that her Chequers Plan would not be acceptable to the EU leaders and that it would only encourage them to hold out for further demands.

These warnings came from the cabinet members who had resigned after being intentiona­lly and cruelly humiliated by the imposition of her unnecessar­y and unpopular negotiatio­n position that had been developed secretly in parallel to the government’s official working papers. There were existing cabinet members who also had grave doubts about the Chequers Plan – and there were many Conservati­ve MPS from both the Europhile-remain and Euroscepti­c-leave wings of the backbenche­s who voiced there public opposition.

An attempt by Conservati­ve Party officials to win round constituen­cy members and office-bearers received a brusque and robust retort. And we know from polling of the top 44 Conservati­ve marginal seats that was published before she went to Salzburg that the public dislike her Chequers Plan enough to lose her party every single one of those seats.

There was in fact no significan­t constituen­cy of supporters of the Chequers Plan other than the prime minister’s retinue and the EU used this weakness to diminish her in public.

Yet out of her vainglorio­us defeat there is still an opportunit­y to recover, save face and come out as the winner. First it requires her to publicly admit that the well-meant Chequers Plan is now a sorry episode in the past and that an alternativ­e will be found. It was a mistake to say there was no alternativ­e to Chequers when there plainly was – for lies will be found out, and it was.

We know there is an alternativ­e because the original papers of the

former Brexit Secretary, David Davis, that met the conditions of the prime minister’s own speeches at Lancaster House, in Florence and at Mansion House and are available in the public domain.

It was also a mistake to by the Prime Minister to invest so much of her reputation in Chequers, for with its rejection she has been badly wounded. She must in future broaden her support across her party, but more importantl­y across the broader Leave movement and those Leavers who are of other parties or none.

Fortunatel­y for the Prime Minister the Institute of Economic Affairs will today publish a new high-level proposal that could become the basis for a unifying negotiatin­g position. Called “Plan A+” it will seek to pull together the central tenets of having a new trading relationsh­ip with the EU while taking back control of the country’s laws, taxes and borders.

It will provide answers to the needless calls for a further referendum on any deal, for so long as the UK Government delivers on what it said it would do in its manifesto – and was backed in that respect by Labour too, namely leaving the EU’S single market and Customs Union – then it has the legal and moral mandate to deliver the deal it thinks best, or no deal if that is better than anything on offer.

Having a plan will also kill the ridiculous idea that she should seek to call a snap election. Parliament would have to agree to call an election but why would there be a majority for that when she is such a poor campaigner and does not have a credible negotiatin­g plan to campaign on?

Fortunatel­y the prime minister can take solace and gain hope in the fact that the Labour opposition cannot decide what course to take regarding Brexit. Corbyn is in deep trouble over the idea of a second referendum, or indeed any attempt to block Brexit. A weekend poll of its top 25 constituen­cies showed that such is the public discontent with its constant dodging from one position to another – so long as its newly adopted line might force a general election – could lose it nineteen seats in a general election. Some 58 per cent of voters in those Labour marginals just want Brexit to be delivered while only 22 per cent support a second referendum.

What potential Labour voters think is far more important than the views of Labour Party members, even more so in the seats the party must retain and those it must win.

With a party conference to convince that she deserves another chance of delivering a meaningful Brexit that respects both what her party campaigned in the elections for – and what the vast majority of the people voted for across various parties – Theresa May first must “chuck Chequers”. If she remains in denial and cannot bring herself to do it then the party can only conclude she is not made of the right stuff for the job in hand.

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 ??  ?? 2 Theresa May is back from Salzburg and has choices to make
2 Theresa May is back from Salzburg and has choices to make

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