BREXIT THEN EXIT?
Theresa May won’t call an Election, claim some Ministers. Why? Because, they say, she just doesn’t enjoy being PM and is already planning to quit
AFEW weeks ago I was chatting to a Minister about Theresa May’s strange reluctance to call a General Election she would win by a landslide. ‘Why is she waiting till 2020 to fight it?’ I asked. ‘How do you know she’s planning on fighting it?’ he replied.
I laughed, but then he explained his thesis. On entering Downing Street, the Prime Minister has discovered that being Prime Minister isn’t really for her. So she intends to serve out the rest of this parliamentary term, deliver a deal on Brexit, then ride off into the sunset.
‘ She’ll be hailed as the person who saved the nation from its worst crisis since the war, then go off and enjoy her retirement with husband Philip,’ he said.
I checked his theory with another Minister. ‘I don’t know the exact timetable,’ he said. ‘ But she’s certainly only a transitional PM.’ A third Minister agreed. ‘ She’ll fight an Election, then be gone in 18 months.’
Mrs May is currently one of the most popular PMs in British political history. Her poll lead is nudging 20 points, her approval rating is 54 points ahead of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and she’s winning by- elections in areas that were previously bandit country for the Tories. Yet after only nine months in Downing Street, many colleagues are already starting to pen her political obituary.
Partly this is a product of the brutally truncated nature of the modern political life cycle. David Cameron became an MP, leader of the Opposition, Prime Minister and an ex-PM all in the space of 15 years. At 59, Mrs May was the oldest PM to take office since Jim Callaghan, whose own unhappy tenure lasted only three years. Going ‘on and on’ is not really an option for her.
THEN there are the continuing whispers about her health. In 2013 the then Home Secretary experienced dramatic weight loss, and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. While she demonstrated impressive stamina in that role, becoming PM has seen her exposed to an entirely different order of stress. ‘I saw her straight after she returned from one of her foreign trips,’ a Minister told me, ‘and she looked exhausted. Nothing can prepare you for that job.’
Rumours of this kind have always attended older politicians governing under the gaze of younger, ambitious counterparts. But there is now something strangely semidetached about Mrs May’s premiership. Some of this aloofness is relatively superficial.
Her statement on the triggering of Article 50 was lacklustre. Ministers were perplexed at how long it took her to issue a reassuring message to the country in the wake of the Westminster terror attack.
Yet in other areas a serious vacuum is being allowed to develop. It was left to Defence Secretary Michael Fallon to provide the Government’s response to US air strikes in Syria. It took another four days for Mrs May to personally discuss the attack with President Trump. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was sent naked into the G7 negotiating chamber – a harrowing prospect for all concerned – and emerged humiliated when his push for fresh sanctions against Russia was rebuffed.
A Downing St r e e t br i e f i n g appeared to undermine US attempts to draw a red line over future chemical weapons use by the Assad regime in Syria.
Yes, much of this happened while the PM was on a walking holiday in Wales. But phones have now made it to the principality. And allowing the impression to form that the PM and Foreign Secretary, and British and US administrations, are out of step over Syria has major geopolitical implications.
For those who work alongside Mrs May and her team on a day-to-day basis, an odd paradox is developing. A senior ministerial adviser says: ‘On one level they’re control freaks, yet on another level they just seem happy to let stuff drift. Look at the Budget. It’s not so much, “We want to do x, not you,” but more, “We don’t want anyone doing x.” ’
SOME May allies – still a rather niche political grouping – dismiss this criticism. ‘She’s been in post less than a year. It takes time to find your feet. But when she does, see what happens to all the moaning minnies,’ said one.
Perhaps. But there is also another theory. That Mrs May now understands only too well what it means to be Prime Minister.
She certainly doesn’t like the trappings of power and detests the scrutiny that accompanies them. But it may also be that Mrs May is already starting to come to appreciate the limitations of the office she once coveted. Last month I was in the Commons watching her deliver a statement on Europe.
She was totally uninterested, until one of the i nterventions touched on the issue of modern slavery. In that moment she came alive, delivering a spontaneous and passionate defence of her record on the issue.
Ask anyone in Downing Street about what drives Mrs May and they will tell you the same thing – her passion for tackling inequality. When she talks of the desire to end ‘burning injustice’ she’s not mouthing a sound bite, she is opening a window into her political soul.
But when she allows her mind’s eye to cast forward, what does she see? The quagmire of Brexit. A fight to the death over the Union. A courtship of convenience with t he man- child Donald Trump. Another attempt at assaulting the debt mountain.
And even if she does retain an appetite for these struggles, an increasing number of those on the benches behind her do not. To modernising Tories she remains an embarrassing throwback. To Eurosceptics her triggering of Article 50 means she has served her purpose.
We are only at the beginning of the May era. But its end is already in sight.
JEREMY Corbyn’ s justice spokesman is in a relationship with a hard-Left student politician who has defended t he right of religious extremists to break the law.
Friends say that 36- year- old Richard Burgon grew close to Shelly Asquith, 26, when she was mobilising young supporters behind Mr Corbyn’s leadership campaigns in 2015 and 2016.
Now Mr Burgon, who was recently singled out by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell as a potential future leader, has gone public with the romance in classic Corbynista style – by posing with Miss Asquith alongside a statue of Karl Marx.
Miss Asquith, vice-president of welfare for the National Union of Students, has campaigned against the Government’s drive to stop young Muslims being radicalised in colleges, describing it as ‘racist’ and a restriction on free speech.
She said: ‘The Governmentment has defined extremism… as vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, which is breaking the rule of law. Well, I think there are some laws that should be broken.’
Mr Burgon, who won his Leeds East seat for the first time at the 2015 General Election, is a staunch Republican who staged a protest t against the Queen while e taking his oath to enter r the Commons.
As recently as 2008 he was a guest speaker at a meeting of thee Leeds branch of the Communist Party celebrating the 1917 Russian Revolution.
The revelations came as dire new poll ratings for Mr Corbyn added to mounting fears among MPs t hat Labour is heading for calamitous results in next month’ s local and mayoral elections.
Labour was already bracing itself for a dismal set of results at the May 4 local elections amid predictions the party could lose 125 seats overall.
But last night, Labour MPs privately voiced fears that they could also crash to defeat in the contest for the new post of West Midlands mayor, where Tory Andy Street is said to be running Labour’s Sion Simon very close.
The ballot for the key post of general secretary of giant union Unite also closes this week, with speculation rife that if incumbent Len McCluskey, a key Corbyn ally, loses to challenger Gerard Coyne, the Labour leader will be severely weakened.
Both Mr Burgon and Miss Asquith declined to comment.