I find myself often trying to figure out what Theresa May is doing these days. As in, what is the strategy she is pursuing exactly, not just in terms of Brexit, but everything else too.
One must begin by recognising that most of her premiership is about Brexit and roll from there. Instead of laying out a realistic plan for leaving and then sticking to it, she came out in the Lancaster House speech in January 2017 really hard, with red lines over red lines. No money to be paid to the EU; out of everything conceivable; we’d negotiate the trade deal before discussing anything else. Since then, it’s been nothing but climbdowns. It seems like the ERG types haven’t noticed this – or maybe they’re playing some sort of long game themselves.
My chief worry is this: is Theresa May playing the “long game”? What I mean by that is, does she think she can somehow muddle her way through the Brexit negotiations and have the final settlement be so undeniably brilliant that Tory MPs say to themselves, “You know what? She may have run the worst campaign in the history of British elections, one so bad that Jeremy Corbyn took succour from it, a campaign that exposed her inability to connect with voters in any way whatsoever, but that EU deal! Man, it’s so good, we should let her be prime minister for as long as she wants it!”
There are only several ways that Brexit can go now, none of which will save May’s premiership beyond early 2019. One, parliament somehow prevents it from happening at all. I used to think this was completely impossible; now, I’m not so certain. The Leavers are playing a glorious hand increasingly badly, so I leave it on the table. More likely, we fudge something with the EU which causes minimal disruption for the time being, and probably involves some sort of customs union. The other possibility is a no deal Brexit, which in the immediate term at the very least would be an epic disaster which would immediately end her premiership.
Even if in fifteen years time everyone, even the most passionate Remainer at present, says “Yes, leaving the EU turned out to be the right thing to do”, that will not seem apparent to anyone in 2019. Remainers will be annoyed if we leave regardless, and Leavers will think the terms on which we leave the EU are insufficient, regardless of what is agreed upon. No one is going to think we got a great deal, in other words. Some in the right of centre press may crow about it, but it will feel hollow, at least at first.
I worry that this isn’t apparent to Mrs May and that she really thinks there is some way for her to come out covered in glory, enough to face the next general election as leader. This is highly delusional, and the big worry is that this is what is causing her indecision. Tory MPs are preparing for a number of different scenarios – every single one of them involves chucking her under the bus as soon as is convenient.
I think there is a very simple reason why you do not know what May is doing, and why no one has any idea.
What is obvious to me is that even for Brexiters, perhaps especially for Brexiters, the vote for Brexit was not supposed to have been won. Boris Johnson, Farage and most other proponents of Brexit had staked their futures on being on the losing side.
Putting in a very tepid remainer as PM has been another mistake. The country is faced with a kind of political Dutch auction in which everyone is scrabbling to lose.
I remember the day of the result, it seemed like every major Leave campaigner was trying to run away from the situation as fast as possible. That set off a lot of alarm bells, particularly when people who have spent most, if not all, of their political career trying to get the UK out of the EEC/EU were walking away from the result at a brisk pace.
Boris backed Leave because he sensed a way to become PM, not expecting to be knifed in the back by Gove (or have to deal with being on the winning side). May was the only choice the Tories had to try and avoid a major civil war in the party (that’s working out well). Now it’s almost like the Leavers in the cabinet are trying hard to get fired so they’re not lumbered with the outcome, and the Tories as a whole are trying to get kicked out of office so Corbyn can take over and get the blame for the mess.
The problem is that Corbyn is useless as an opposition leader, and actively backing the Tories with Brexit. I can’t imagine any previous Labour opposition being so utterly unable to capitalise on a government that is so completely incompetent and divided.
Corbyn became leader of the Labour party basically by default: he didn’t think he would, he didn’t think he could, he didn’t really campaign for it, he didn’t ask anybody who didn’t already agree with him to vote for him, he just happened to be standing there doing the same thing he’s always done (rant at rallies of the like-minded) at the moment when every other wing of the party imploded at the same time and he, unexpectedly, found himself leader.
He’s trying to become Prime Minister in the same way.
It’s all he knows, really.