Let crisp mountain air give PM clarity

THE Liberal Democrats have called on Prime Minister Theresa May to interrupt her holidays to end the “cabinet civil war” over Brexit.

Vince Cable, who now leads the UK party, pointed to the differing opinions in the Tory top team over when free movement of people should end.

Mrs May is doubtless fully aware of the shenanigans which have unfolded while she has been out of the country.

Former Welsh Secretary and exBrexit minister David Jones turned his guns on Chancellor Philip Hammond, who is seen as favouring a softer variety of Brexit. Clwyd West MP Mr Jones said that “all this agitation by the Chancellor and his allies is hugely discourteous to [the PM] and undermines her authority”.

Mrs May will be up to date with what cabinet ministers have said about chlorinated chicken, immigration policy and the length of the post-Brexit transition period.

If she did summon them back to the cabinet table it is far from clear that she would be able to knock heads together and introduce a new standard of discipline and unanimity.

Had Mrs May achieved a threefigure majority in the June election her authority would be unquestionable. Hundreds of MPs would look to her as the leader who secured their re-election and only the most brazen Tory radical would challenge her vision of Brexit.

Alas for Mrs May, her disastrous decision to call a snap election means her powers of judgement are far from venerated. Just as a chemistry teacher would struggle to impose order in a classroom if his or her experiment had gone up in flames in front of a roomful of already rowdy pupils, so the PM will have a hard time getting the big beasts of the Tory tribe to pipe down and walk in single file.

A hasty return from her holidays would only add to the sense that the reason why the cabinet sounds like a choir trying to sing without a song-sheet is that the UK’s position on key issues is far from nailed down.

The markets might well be spooked if Mrs May rushed back to London in a desperate attempt to press her colleagues’ mute buttons. People might conclude that the clock is ticking towards the moment in 2019 when the UK will cease to be a member of the EU but our Government is fuzzy on the deal it wishes to negotiate.

The public outbursts of disagreement are informative. Each highlights an area where there should be a full and extensive public debate.

This is not just a time when we need clear political leadership. We need to see leadership from the business community, trade unions, charities, and anyone of intelligence and goodwill who understands the gravity of what is at stake and the necessity of ensuring that we don’t bequeath our children a country where prosperity withers and chaos reigns.

If days spent walking in Europe’s crisp mountain air can give the PM urgently needed clarity, so much the better. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2014 was 78.5%