‘The Prime Minister threatens to neutralise Brexit, disable our sovereignty and obliterate the Conservative Party’

Quentin Letts on why her backbenchers have little to lose by replacing her

Confronted by hierarchy, we Righties go a bit peculiar. If an archbishop or field marshal enters the room, a worshipful gleam infests our eyeballs. In royalty’s orbit we succumb to red-carpet fever. Prince Charles must think half the country loopy: he comments on the weather and they just giggle and wring their wrists.

Same with prime ministers. Here is the occupant of 10 Downing Street, possessor of the nuclear-warfare codes. It does not matter if the prime ministers be Labour or Tory, their majority large or small; you still get a tingle when they sweep past with their clack-clacking retinue, particularly if they acknowledge your vole-like existence and ask about your constituency. “Ah, Herbert, I trust the voters of Grimewold Central are keeping you honest!” “Thank you, Prime Minister!”

It is natural for Tories to be reluctant to topple even a bad prime minister. MPs’ careers are driven by patronage and eliciting favours from authority. To oust a PM might feel like regicide. If the PM is a woman with a chronic illness, ouch, that could make her opponents look cruel on two extra fronts. The Right-winger feels these things more keenly than Lefties, whose hard-wired egalitarianism makes them bolshy (the word comes from Bolshevik).

Yet even the most ploddingly loyal Tory MP must now see that Theresa May is, indeed, a very bad prime minister. Her proposed deal with the EU is dishonest, cowardly, antidemocratic, unpopular and unrealistic. Jo Johnson and others have compared it to Suez, but at least Anthony Eden was trying to assert British power. Mrs May shrivelled without a fight. In her wake she trails eau de defeatism.

This terrible plan of hers is only a draft. Drafts can be redrafted. She won’t do that, but a new PM would. Think of the relief if she left office. I actually think she herself would be happier. A successor would be lumbered with the same lack of a parliamentary majority, but she or he would rejuvenate the public. Mrs May has demoralised the country just when its loins need stirring.

People at Westminster become so dazed by talk of backstops that they fail to spot what is afoot: the technocrats are trying to overturn the Leave result. This scandal goes ignored by the pathetically obedient anti-Brexit media, but Tony Blair last week let slip the duplicity of what has been going on. He praised Olly Robbins for “camouflaging” Mrs May’s Europhile agreement. Blair may admire dishonesty, but do Tory MPs?

“Yes, but,” says the little imp on your shoulder, “the referendum was only 52:48, so we need a 52:48 Brexit.” That is like saying the All Blacks did not really beat England at Twickenham last Saturday because there was only one point in it. And if only Mrs May’s deal was anything like 52:48! It is more like 25:75 in favour of the very EU our country voted to leave.

A real prime minister would tell Brussels: “My parliament won’t wear this deal. If you want that 39 billion quid, we need to rethink.” A real PM would not wail about “no deal” being dreadful. She would hail its attractions and that would give the markets time to get used to the idea. A real PM would not ambush successive Brexit secretaries with “camouflaging” officials.

Mrs May has qualities. Her

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion stamina would be remarkable even in someone who did not have diabetes. She is a heroically untrendy old goose and appears as little driven by personal greed as was Gordon Brown – another decent but bad prime minister. Just as poor Gordon lost his moorings, so has she. On Thursday evening, she insisted it was all fine and her plan would pass through the Commons. Er, how? For three hours t that morning, backbenchers on all sides gave her Brexit plan a comprehensive bogwashing. That would have happened even before she squandered David Cameron’s majority. Almost the cruellest thing? MPs were so polite. No one called her “Mr Bean”. No one attacked her for being a Bliar or Bullingdon Club Hooray. They pitied her. I’m afraid she has become a pathetic figure. Tiny Tim in a pair of red Russell & Bromleys. She threatens to neutralise Brexit, disable our sovereignty and obliterate the Tory party. Her backbenchers have little to lose by dumping her.