Daring. Decisive. A hint of steel. Truly, May’s momentous speech was like watching the Iron Lady in full flight

Standing in neoclassical splendour in London’s St James’s, Lancaster House has seen more than its fair share of historic moments — from two g7 summits and the signing of Malaya’s independence treaty in 1956 to the tortured negotiations in the Seventies that saw Rhodesia become independent Zimbabwe.

Even so, i suspect not even this grand venue has seen anything to rival theresa May’s unveiling of her plan for Brexit, which will surely rank among the few genuinely consequential speeches in our modern political history.

We always think of Prime Ministers as great speechmakers. We picture them on the political platform, their faces straining with passion, the words pouring forth in a torrent of conviction.

Optimism

Yet how many modern prime ministerial speeches can any of us remember?

david Cameron has been gone for less than a year, but who can recall anything he ever said? Who can quote so much as a line from gordon Brown?

tony Blair’s best speeches all came before he was elected Prime Minister, when he was urging his own party to embrace modernisation. John Major, though personally more substantial than the grey stereotype, never said anything even remotely interesting.

in fact, you have to go back to Margaret thatcher to find a Prime Minister whose speeches have lingered in the memory, whether promising her party conference that she was ‘not for turning’ in 1980 or pledging to resist the growth of a European super-state in Bruges in 1988.

Perhaps that was what made Mrs May’s speech yesterday so refreshing. indeed, whatever you think of her strategy — and i will come to that later — you surely cannot question her status as the undisputed heavyweight champion of British politics.

in its clarity, daring, pragmatism, optimism and palpable decency — not to mention more than a hint of steel at the end — Mrs May’s speech could hardly have been more impressive.

the inevitable comparisons with the late Lady thatcher are sometimes overblown, but i was reminded more than once of the iron Lady in full flight.

not for three decades, i think, have we heard a Prime Minister on such clear, confident, serious and decisive form.

the obvious caveat, of course, is that even the most impressive speeches can turn out to be mere hot air.

Ultimately, historians will not remember the Brexit negotiations for the speech that set out Britain’s opening bid; they will only remember what happened in the end.

Even so, Mrs May could hardly have delivered a more comprehensive rebuff to her critics — not least the Economist magazine’s damning cover story about ‘theresa Maybe’, an ‘indecisive premier’ supposedly skulking in her downing Street bunker and refusing either to speak to the British people or to face the hard decisions that lie ahead.

at Lancaster House yesterday, ‘theresa Maybe’ was nowhere to be seen. indeed, Mrs May’s position could hardly have been clearer. no one could possibly accuse her now of shirking the hard choices.

Out of the European single market, probably out of the customs union, recovering control of our borders, the end of European judicial sovereignty, new trade deals with the rest of the world and Parliament to vote on the terms of the deal. Or, as someone once put it: ‘Brexit means Brexit’.

to some extent, of course, Mrs May was simply stating the obvious. almost as soon as the verdict of the British people became clear last June, it was patently obvious that we could not stay in the European single market.

For despite the anguished protests of some Remainers — and i write as someone who, like Mrs May, voted Remain — the referendum was in large part a verdict on the EU’s opendoor immigration policy.

Under the terms of the single market, however, freedom of movement of people is simply non-negotiable. to stay in the single market, in other words, would always have meant ignoring the very clear wishes of the millions who voted to leave.

in that respect, the Brexit terms were effectively decided a long time ago — not by Mrs May, or even by the British people, but by the EU elite themselves.

the fact is that it was the leaders of other EU countries who would not admit any substantial flexibility in their arrangements, refused to give david Cameron a decent deal when he tried to renegotiate Britain’s membership, and therefore handed the referendum to the Leave campaign on a plate.

if these EU leaders had been ready to compromise, not least on immigration, then perhaps we wouldn’t be in this position in the first place. But here we are, and Mrs May’s historic role is to make the best of it.

if she really had been the ‘muddled’ theresa Maybe of the Economist’s caricature, she would have fudged and ducked the issues. But she didn’t.

above all, she was right to emphasise our traditions of openness and tolerance, our history of global trade and our security commitments to our European partners.

Audacity

Most impressive, though, was her sheer audacity in choosing a clear direction and sticking to it. She recognised that the highhanded inflexibility of the EU made a clean break inevitable, and she went for it.

in that respect, the comparison with Mrs thatcher is, indeed, well deserved.

For Mrs thatcher, too, inherited a fiendishly difficult situation on taking office (in her case, Britain’s basket- case economy), chose a clear and decisive course, and stuck to her guns, come what may.

at times, i was half-tempted to wonder what Mrs May’s other predecessors would have said.

david Cameron’s speech would have been one of emollient half- measures; gordon Brown’s would surely have been arid and technical; and tony Blair would have given us plenty of stardust, but no substance.

By contrast, Mrs May could scarcely have been more straightforward.

in her rhetoric, as well as her political persona, she remains the Middle England vicar’s daughter — patriotic and plainspeaking, but not afraid to be tough when it matters, as proved when she warned some of our European friends not to try to punish Britain in the article 50 talks.

She named no names, but i can’t help but suspect that the French President Francois Hollande’s ears were burning.

Will her speech linger in the memory, though?

Well, that depends. if it proves the springboard to a smooth and happy negotiation, setting the tone for Britain’s successful exit from the EU and our rebirth as a global trading nation, then Mrs May’s words certainly will be long remembered.

Respected

But if things go badly, no one will recall that she ever said them. after all, if Britain had lost World War ii, few would remember Winston Churchill’s stirring words today, just as no one would care what Margaret thatcher had said if she had failed to bring economic recovery.

What matters are the results, not the airy promises before you start work.

Even so, Mrs May has surely done herself and her country the world of good, as evidenced by the reaction of the currency markets, which saw the biggest rise in sterling for a long time.

indeed, in just 40 minutes, she confirmed her commanding place at the summit of British politics, stamped her authority on the Brexit process and cemented her growing reputation as probably the most widely respected Prime Minister for decades.

true, there are more than two years to go before Britain leaves the EU — two years that are bound to have their fair share of setbacks, crises and compromises — so it is too early to say whether this will be a speech that resounds in history.

Still, if theresa May’s actions live up to her fine words, if her optimism proves well placed and if Britain does indeed prosper after 2019, then she will surely command a high place in our national story.