Write your letters of no confidence now, MPs, there is an alternative to Mrs May

This is Theresa May’s Oliver Cromwell moment. Not because, with a ferocity of zeal and commitment, she is about to take us out of the European Union, and invite it to do its worst; but because her party must say to her, as the Lord Protector did to the Rump Parliament: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go.”

The patience of that party seems exhausted. She has surrendered the conduct of the Brexit negotiations to a civil service determined to thwart our departure from the EU, egged on to defy the public’s will by such titans of the democratic process as Lord Adonis and Sir Mark Sedwill, the acting, and depressingly over-mighty, Cabinet Secretary. The public have seen her fumbling in television interviews, unable to master her tortuous brief – a brief that, with its talk of indeterminate transition periods, mocks her earlier assertion that “Brexit means Brexit”.

She never held the initiative; if she had, we would not be having Jesuitical conversations about the Irish border 28 months after what David Cameron called the “once-in-a-lifetime” referendum. She would have berated Brussels for weaponising the Irish against us; she would have enlightened Leo Varadkar, the Irish taioseach, about how any border that appears, and any tariffs levied, will be his doing, acting on the orders of his masters in Brussels. She would have appealed directly to our friends in Ireland – and there are many – to ensure that their economy, heavily dependent on the United Kingdom, continued to thrive and grow. If any of this occurred to her, it was apparently dismissed as pointless, or unnecessarily provocative.

Mrs May claims to like cricket, so should recall an observation by Bill Woodfull, who captained Australia during the notorious bodyline series of 1932-33, when an England side, to its eternal shame, acted as something of a role model for Michel Barnier. Woodfull said: “There are two teams out there. One is playing cricket and the other is not.”

Now, in this negotiation, one side is acting politically, and the other is not. Mrs May has failed abjectly to be political with the EU, while it uses every ruse and manipulative act it can to stop us leaving (not least because, I was told last week, they fear Italy threatens to emulate us). Mrs May, who does not believe in Brexit, acts like a middle-ranking civil servant; and her civil servants act like desperate politicians, seeking to appease the enemy at any moral cost.

No one except Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, knows how many letters he has received from Tory MPs calling for a vote of confidence in Mrs May’s leadership. For months those MPs have claimed that the act would be futile, as there is no clear candidate to take over. That is no longer true.

David Davis, having quite rightly resigned from the Cabinet over the preposterous Chequers plan, went to Haltemprice-les-deux-Églises and, like an Anglo-Saxon Charles de Gaulle, waited to be summoned to save the nation. His friends told him that would

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion not work. In modern politics, power must be seized. It is not delivered on a plate.

He eventually recognised that, and wrote a damning critique of Mrs May’s strategy in the press a week ago. Since then he has been “on manoeuvres”, carefully avoiding briefing the press directly or saying anything personally critical of Mrs May; his line is that it is the policy that must be changed, not the person.

However, when the person is too obtuse, too confused, too obstinate or too frightened to change the policy, her party is left with no option but to change her. Mr Davis, whose convictions as a Brexiteer are in no doubt, has signalled that he will strive to give the country the leadership it demands on this question. There is no need to wait further; quite the reverse.

Mr Davis is spoken of as a “caretaker leader”. There is no such thing in our constitution. If he leads the Tory party, he leads it until he retires or he fails. He was not a distinguished Brexit secretary, though that was not least because his hands were tied by a prime minister insufficiently aware of her administration’s, and parliament’s, obligations to the voters.

Some of us remember 1995, when John Major, who was manifestly leading the Tories to an epic defeat and years in opposition, received a vote of confidence from his deluded party.

Learn from that mistake: write your letters to Sir Graham, ladies and gentlemen. The absurdities of the last few days are becoming an insult to a country that has made its wishes clear. It is the job of Tory MPs, in particular, to ensure the bargain with the people is kept. As Oliver would have said, this cannot go on.

What have local councils done to deserve this extra money they are demanding in their begging letters to taxpayers and central government? These, remember, are the same bodies that were so recklessly managed that they kept their surplus cash in high interest Icelandic banks that went bust during the financial crisis. Now, according to new figures, they have struck on the genius wheeze of investing in retail property – just as other investors run for the exits, fleeing a structural decline in the high street.

Perhaps I am wrong to be cynical. Not all councils are like Northamptonshire, which had to offload its sparkling new £50 million headquarters after it fell into effective bankruptcy. Or Swindon, which is telling residents that their efforts to recycle plastic are pointless, since it can’t be disposed of properly. Or Bath, which found last year that new 20mph speed limits increased road deaths, but said they were too expensive to remove. Or the countless others afflicted by gargantuan waste, conflicts of interest, and overpaid chief executives.

But it would be easier to stomach the endless complaints about austerity and the demands to permit doubledigit increases in council tax if local authorities could be trusted to act in the interests of local residents. In theory, as they are the closest rung of government to the people, they should

‘Mrs May has failed abjectly to be political with the EU, while it uses every ruse and manipulative act it can to stop us leaving’

‘It would be easier to stomach the demands to permit double-digit increases in council tax if local authorities could be trusted to act in the interests of local residents’

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion