May under fire for inviting Corbyn into Brexit ‘love-fest’
THERESA MAY’S plan to form an alliance with Labour unravelled yesterday as former ministers said it was “advertising her weakness” and would hasten her downfall.
Tory MPS in the Commons also attacked the “love-fest” and urged Mrs May to sup with Jeremy Corbyn with a “very long spoon” on security issues.
In a speech today, Mrs May will ask Mr Corbyn for his support in delivering Brexit and other legislation as she faces up to the “reality I now face as Prime Minister”.
Mrs May will also make a direct appeal to opposition MPS to “contribute, not just criticise” and help “clarify and improve” her policies in the Commons.
In a press conference in Downing Street, Mrs May said “the public will rightly want us to get the broadest possible consensus” on some policy areas.
However, Mr Corbyn rejected the appeal and demanded a fresh election. He said: “Let’s face it, the Government has run out of steam.”
Conservative MPS were appalled by the direct appeal for help from Mr Corbyn after the Tories spent much of the election campaign attacking him.
One ex-minister said: “It is one thing to be weak, it is another thing to advertise your weakness. There is a huge amount of disgruntlement with her.
“What she has done now is to admit to the entire world that she is rudderless – why she thinks it is a good idea to deliver a speech of that sort beats me.”
There was speculation in Westminster that Mrs May could be challenged about setting a date to quit when she meets her backbench MPS tomorrow.
The ex-minister said: “The Parliamentary party has discounted her continuation – she is finished. Everyone is looking to what happens after she has gone.” Another MP said: “We can’t say Jeremy Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser and then reach out for his support when it suits us.”
More than a dozen letters had been submitted to Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 committee.
If 48 Tory MPS – 15 per cent of the parliamentary party – submit similar letters, it will automatically trigger a Conservative leadership election.
Today, precisely a year after she became leader of the Conservatives, Theresa May gives a major speech – her first since the election. She could have used it to reassert her belief in traditional Tory values, and some measure of grip over her party. Instead, she caps a year spent pursuing Labour leftward across the political divide by actually asking Jeremy Corbyn to “contribute” to government policy on Brexit and, it seems, much else besides.
It is worth remembering that the last national unity administrations in this country oversaw the existential threat of the Second World War and its aftermath. Mrs May is in dire straits, but it is not as bad as that. There is a serious point here: war is a natural impetus toward collaboration between major parties. Minority government, testament to a polarised political scene, is not.
Little wonder, then, that instead of prompting a great coming together, Mrs May’s idea appears to be falling apart almost immediately. Labour, under Mr Corbyn, has very little to offer the debate. We know the Labour solution to every ill: throw more money at it. On the NHS, more money. On public sector workers, more money. On student debt, a whole lot more money. Irrespective of the merits of the policy, Labour will step in with its siren call to provide more “government money”. Except that, of course, there is no “government money”, only taxpayers’. The Conservatives, astonishingly, seem to have forgotten how to make this argument.
The other point, which also appears to escape Tory strategists (if they still exist), is that only a month ago the Conservative Party painted Mr Corbyn as a terrorist-sympathising radical for whom the people of Britain would be mad to vote. Anyone who put him near the levers of power would be toying with our national security, the message went. Now the Conservatives are doing it themselves.
Of course there are issues on which national unity is required. Whether it be on Brexit or sustainable funding for the NHS and social care, a level of consensus will be critical in shaping future policy. But such consensus requires scrupulous political preparation and a responsible Opposition, not opportunism born of desperation. A year on, the Conservatives sometimes appear to have lost their bearings. The Prime Minister must lead them back, and she will not find the right path by following Mr Corbyn.