Seven days that changed Britain,
After the most eventful week in politics since the end of the Second World War, reviews a series of events that overturned all expectations
We need a new lexicon. Seven days ago we were reeling from Westminster’s most momentous week since the end of the Second World War. Yet in the past few days, even the handful of certainties that remained after Britain voted to leave the EU have come under the heaviest of fire.
As we wondered just how Britain was going to address the Herculean task of unbuckling itself from the EU and of finding a new prime minister, there still seemed to be a few fixed points, at least.
The first, following David Cameron’s resignation, was the self-evident truth that only someone who backed Britain’s exit from the EU could lead the Conservative Party. No one else would carry conviction in the country, or in Brussels. Another was that Boris Johnson had overcome Britain’s traditional distaste for personal ambition and was effectively on the threshold of Downing Street.
Without his devastating, dramatic switch in February, the Brexit team would not have had the dash and clout necessary to win the prize. Though to some it looked transparently careerist, pundits talked knowingly of Johnson’s star quality with the voters, and Tories love winning elections.
We knew, too – or thought we did – that Michael Gove, more genuinely troubled than Johnson ever was about supporting Brexit and going against David Cameron, had no ambitions to be prime minister. He had told us so at least 10 times in the past four years. He, surely, was there to add plausibility and intellectual ballast to the difficult questions surrounding free movement of workers, the single market and how to keep Nigel Farage at bay. He would coordinate the supportive laughter next time Boris got stuck on a metaphorical zip wire.
But, for heaven’s sake, that was seven whole days ago. Boris Johnson had spent the previous day playing cricket with his old friend Earl Spencer at Althorp House. Late on Saturday he had spoken to Gove and agreed that the latter should be Chancellor if Boris was to become PM. The pair also discussed making a joint appearance on TV to pacify the nervous markets, but decided against it. Instead, Boris held a barbecue at his home near Thame in Oxfordshire, attended by Gove and two aides.
Instead of the brainstorming session they expected, what they found was, as they later described it, a “boozy, shambolic, disorganised and ill-disciplined” encounter. The Johnson camp felt Gove was jumping the gun and making too many early demands about Cabinet jobs, but to Gove’s people there was little evidence of Johnson – like Gove, exhausted by the campaign – hitting the ground running, or even having done much thinking about the thicket of decisions that confront the Government. That was No 10’s job, said his supporters. Sausage, anyone?
Johnson seemed oblivious of the need to reassure those who saw his switch to Brexit as careerist, or who saw the vote as an awful mistake committed by people who hadn’t thought through the consequences. How Remain must regret ditching the campaign posters that showed a grenade with the words “Once out, the pin can’t be put back in”. The strength of Johnson’s commitment to Leave had caused concern since he had proposed renegotiation and a second poll at the start of the campaign.
As the new week began, George Osborne surprised no one by announcing the emergency Budget he claimed would be required after a proBrexit vote was unnecessary after all, notwithstanding the wobbles that continue to beset the City. In the party, concerns in the Gove camp were compounded by the article Johnson wrote (when tired, admitted aides later) for Monday’s in which he said the vote to leave had not really been about immigration. Gove’s team say they saw the article too late to suggest substantial changes, although emails tell a different story. Within hours, Nigel Farage, who had talked about serving alongside Johnson in some capacity, was complaining about the risk of backsliding on grave commitments to the electorate by senior Tories.
On Tuesday morning, strategist Sir Lynton Crosby got Gove and Johnson together to try to smooth things out. In fact the tensions were aggravated. The same day, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn faced a vote of no confidence, an event of minimal relevance, for the time being, anyway. He lost it heavily. It was still a sideshow. Another spearcarrier, David Cameron, was in Brussels for his Last Supper with angry EU heads of state, where he complained of the lies and exaggerations of the Vote Leave campaign. Migration was the issue the EU had to address, he insisted, and lay at the heart of Britain’s decision. Next time there was such a meeting, he told them, either Johnson or May would be representing the UK.
Ah, Theresa May, or rather the “woeful, ridiculous” Theresa May, as one pundit called her last weekend because of her decision to follow her leader – and support Remain – rather than her assumed convictions, thus needlessly putting her on the losing side. But was she so unlikely? Tories who ideally wanted a Brexiteer leader and were unsure about Johnson could equally not envisage fellow outers Michael Gove or Chris Grayling, Liam Fox or Andrea Leadsom in Downing Street. A poll on Tuesday suggested the Home Secretary, whose unshowy, tough competence was to contrast well with the squabbling of the schoolboys around her, had the backing of 31 per cent of Tory voters, against 24 per cent for Johnson.
Seemingly in these topsy-turvy times her muted support for the Remain campaign (unlike that of early fallers Jeremy Hunt and Nicky Morgan) may be a qualification for leading her party, a curious twist on Jeremy Corbyn’s genuinely woeful position.
May’s low-key manner should not suggest a lack of ambition, and on Thursday morning, nervous but impressive, she launched her leadership campaign. Ditching any thought of pulling Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights and accepting “Brexit means Brexit”, she put the boot into those who see politics as a game, or spend their time schmoozing, saying she just gets on with the job. Her main target may have been Johnson, but