Michael DEACON
Long before she braved the chamber yesterday, Theresa May must have known that her MPS would find some way to humiliate her. And indeed they did. But not, as she might have assumed, by heckling her, or insulting her, or bellowing at her to go. Instead, they found a method that was simpler, but just as effective. They didn’t turn up.
At five minutes to one, as Mrs May presented what she gamely describes as her “new Brexit deal”, the gaps on the benches behind her yawned ominously wide. Those Tory MPS who had turned up were easily outnumbered by the Opposition. Even the Government’s front bench wasn’t full. Among Cabinet Brexiteers, only Andrea Leadsom, at that point still leader of the house, and Stephen Barclay, the Brexit Secretary, were present. As the afternoon limped on, it only got worse. Mrs May’s benches grew emptier, and emptier – until, by the end, there were barely any Tories in the House at all.
Mrs May had come to beg for support. But now there was no one left to beg.
She might as well have been talking to herself.
Imagine being her, yesterday afternoon. Glancing behind you, and seeing nothing but desolate green space. Knowing that your own colleagues, your own honourable friends, haven’t come to hear your crucial speech – because they’re much too busy elsewhere, discussing your imminent demise.
Perhaps it was this grim realisation that prompted her sporadic little bursts of tetchiness. “I’ve been trying to leave the EU!” she snapped at one
point, with an exasperated roll of the eyes. “I’m looking forward to voting for a fourth time to leave the EU!
“Sadly, Opposition members, some of my colleagues, have not voted alongside me!”
You couldn’t just hear those italics. You could taste them. Each word was as bitter as a jet of lemon juice.
For all her weary pleading, few MPS offered her any encouragement. A compliment of sorts came from Chuka Umunna (Change UK, Streatham). The Article 50 deadline was Oct 31, he said; to avoid a no-deal Brexit, would Mrs May promise to request a further extension?
Mr Umunna seemed actually to believe that she would still be Prime Minister in autumn. It was the kindest thing that anyone said to her all day.
Supposedly, as many as two dozen Tories fancy Mrs May’s job. Precisely why is hard to fathom. Perhaps each of them has secretly devised a hitherto unidentified form of Brexit that a majority in this Parliament will support. Or perhaps each imagines that, the moment Mrs May is ousted, a grateful public will clamour for a snap election, so that it can reward the Tories with a glorious landslide.
“In the end,” sighed Mrs May yesterday, during her statement to Parliament, “our job in this House is to take decisions. Not to duck them.”
Unfortunately for her, it seems that her colleagues finally agree.