National Post (National Edition)
RIFTS APPEAR IN U.K. CABINET OVER BREXIT STRATEGY.
LONDON • British Prime Minister Theresa May will put Brexit at the heart of the Queen’s Speech to parliament Wednesday and jettison a raft of key manifesto pledges in the hope that she can remain Prime Minister for at least two more years.
However, May still has no guarantee that she can form a viable government after the Democratic Union Party Tuesday night threatened to walk away from a proposed deal. The prime minister will admit that the general election result “was not the one I hoped for” and that she needs to “gain the trust and confidence of the British people.”
She will start that process by dropping unpopular policies on social care, winter fuel payments, free school meals, fox hunting, grammar schools and the pensions “triple lock.”
In an attempt to cling to power, May will pack the Queen’s Speech with Brexit legislation on migration and trade, which will dominate Parliamentary business until 2019.
May will also promise to show “humility” and learn the lessons of “the message the electorate sent.”
The opening of Parliament will go ahead despite no deal yet being reached with the DUP, without whose support May cannot command an overall majority.
Tuesday night, the DUP threatened to walk away from the talks altogether, claiming Downing Street was in “complete chaos” and urging the government to give “greater focus” to the negotiations.
DUP sources said the party should not be “taken for granted” in talks which had not “proceeded in a way that the DUP would have expected.”
There was even speculation that the Conservatives could approach the Liberal Democrats for support now that Tim Farron, the party’s leader — who opposed any deal with the Tories — is stepping down.
Whitehall sources said they were “confident” the DUP would support the Queen’s Speech, even if a deal is delayed, with negotiations over money said to be the final sticking point.
The DUP is understood to have agreed the content of the Queen’s Speech, which was postponed from Monday, because talks over a deal were taking longer than anticipated. The Speech will contain little in the way of new policies.
It will include the Great Repeal Bill, which will transfer EU laws to the British statute books before they can be repealed, and the Government’s White Paper setting out May’s 12 principles for leaving the EU, including exiting the single market and the customs union.
However, the Prime Minister faces opposition within her own cabinet, as well as from the majority of MPs who favour a soft Brexit.