May must go – this is a national emergency
What can the Prime Minister be thinking? It’s over. She can no longer pass critical legislation; the latest draft of her Withdrawal Agreement is dead in the water; her backbenchers are up in arms; Cabinet members would like to meet to discuss her future. Andrea Leadsom has resigned as Leader of the House, saying Britain will not be “truly sovereign” under the agreement and that “government processes” have broken down. And yet, Theresa May clings on. Why? What does she think she has left to achieve? What political face is there left to save?
Today, the country votes in the European elections and with every minute Mrs May stays in power, one can almost visualise the Conservative vote disappearing like dust in the wind. Her resistance to facts is absurd. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is actually refusing to meet Government ministers, presumably in case they ask her to resign.
If the Prime Minister is trying to build a positive legacy, this is not the way to go about it. It would have been better to leave with dignity before the European vote than to go after it, booted out not just by the parliamentary party but, in effect, the voters. This is typical of Mrs May: she has admirable reserves of will power but she always deploys them in the wrong way. Imagine if she had shown this stubbornness in her negotiations with the EU. Imagine if she had said “no deal is better than a bad deal” and actually meant it – prepared the country for a no-deal outcome and been willing to walk away.
How much more would Brussels have conceded? When Britain really needed Mrs May’s fortitude, the Prime Minister kindly told the other side they could have whatever they wanted. Once the Europeans got it, she suddenly turned tough – first on her own party (goodbye David Davis, farewell Boris Johnson) and then on Parliament. The Prime Minister knew way back in December that there was no Commons majority for her deal and yet there she was in the Commons yesterday, pushing it yet again.
For what possible purpose? Labour has said it will vote against it; the number of declared Tory rebels has increased. Yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke with the green benches behind her half empty, the last vestiges of her authority gone. And the complaints weren’t just over Brexit.
The Prime Minister also displayed utter insensitivity when challenged over the treatment of Northern Ireland veterans. As The Sunday
Telegraph revealed, Mrs May personally blocked ministers from proposing a new law that could have protected those who served in the province from facing murder charges – and the fury of Conservative MPS was obvious. What did Mrs May do? She just repeated over and over again some strange mantra about not allowing amnesty for IRA terrorists (which no veteran has asked for), completely missing the point that British Army personnel should never be treated on a par with terrorists and that all Northern Ireland veterans request is to be treated the same as those who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan.
On this issue – as on Europe – the Prime Minister seems impervious to advice and actively opposed to the instincts of her own voters. No wonder that so many of them are planning to break the habit of a lifetime and vote for a party other than the Conservatives today. They do this, in many cases, out of a mix of exasperation and disgust.
The Conservative Party must understand that the longer Mrs May remains its leader, the greater the contamination of their brand. Many MPS seem to believe that the Euro vote is simply a one-off protest. But unless the Conservatives drop Mrs May fast and distance themselves from her policies, it increasingly seems possible that the centre-right coalition in Britain will be fractured for years to come. And the beneficiary will not be a social democratic Labour leader, it will be a Marxist. This farce helps Nigel Farage today, but in the future it is most likely to help Jeremy Corbyn.
That’s the important point: these events are not just a personal tragedy for Mrs May or a psychodrama for the Conservative Party. They amount to a national emergency. The world doesn’t know if Britain is leaving the EU. Problems that require real energy – such as the future of British Steel – are sidelined. The argument for markets and individual liberty is not being made, which means the Left is winning the debate by default. Therefore, either Mrs May must go as soon as humanly possible or the Conservative Party must finally remove her.
If any other Cabinet member feels they cannot serve with her, the next step is obvious: resign. The country needs courage. It has had quite enough of the worst being stubborn and the best being timid.
Many Tories are now planning to break the habit of a lifetime and vote for another party
This farce helps Nigel Farage today, but in the future it is most likely to help Jeremy Corbyn