Theresa May’s party conference speech ignored the reality that her party will not recover public support until it stops pretending Brexit will be good for the country.
Passionate, detailed and with emphasis on her social justice agenda, Theresa May’s speech addressed voters’ main concerns – albeit dogged by a sore throat and prankster waving a P45. But nowhere did she acknowledge that there is no evidence that Brexit will be the moment when Britain takes off economically and politically. Instead it is more likely to crash land.
The prime minister’s passion about increasing opportunities would be uplifting, if it were not for the fact that Brexit will weaken Britain’s economic performance in ways that will hurt working class people and the elderly more than most. It will not be middle-class Brexiters who will pick the fruit or clean the toilets when the EU migrants stop coming, it will be working class people who have lost their jobs in manufacturing. If nurses and doctors from the EU go home who will care for our frail elderly?
May was just as passionate about maintaining the Union, but with no recognition that Brexit profoundly endangers it because the people of Scotland and Northern Ireland voted by a large margin to stay in the EU and are now being taken out if without any say on the terms of that departure.
In a strong defence of the free market, May failed to note that Britain’s prosperity has for a quarter of a century been connected to the largest free market in the world, the European single market which her environment secretary disparages and her foreign secretary wants us to leave. The most pro-business of the three main parties has rejected business’ views that Britain is better off inside the EU single market than out.
What good May might have done to her cause she undermined with a depressing section on Brexit. The claim that “whatever the outcome of our negotiations, Britain’s long-term future is bright” is the triumph of hope over expectation. It also sounds like yet another resurrection of that absurd phrase, “no deal is better than a bad deal”.
Democracy stopped on the June 23 2016 for the prime minister. Of Brexit she declared: “The people have decided. We have taken their instruction.” This language may win cheers at a Tory conference but it will deprive the party of votes in the London elections next spring and beyond.
In fairness the Prime Minister was facing the almost impossible task of clawing back her credibility as a leader after the repeated rebellions of her colleagues. The conference finished as it began, with ill-judged words from the foreign secretary leading to calls by his own MPs for him to be sacked.
The trouble is that her foreign secretary is an off-piste skier who hopes to trigger an avalanche, one that will bring down the prime minister and his Cabinet rivals but from which he will miraculously escape. It is a high risk strategy but then Boris Johnson, over-influenced by his love of the classics, has always played politics as if it was a high-stakes game.
Politics actually favours those who have two attributes Johnson is obviously lacking – a capacity for hard work and good judgement. May is in trouble now because her decision to call a general election, the way in she led her party’s campaign and her handling of Brexit has raised serious questions about her judgement.
The worst Conservative Party conference in living memory was hamstrung, like May’s speech, by a failure of imagination. Young people are not hostile to the Conservative Party simple because of the cost of higher education or a lack of decent housing. It is their feeling that the Conservatives’ Brexit has robbed them of their futures. They are a generation that has known nothing but open borders and open minds, but now find that their grandparents can take that away from them without their being given a say. Young people are attracted by a bigger, more open world, not a closed, mean-spirited little England.
For all the talk of “global Britain”, the Conservatives ended their conference as they began it, ignoring the elephant in the room. Brexit is not an opportunity for Britain but a monstrous act of self-harm that may kill off their party at the same time.
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Edited by Luke Lythgoe
I totally agree with all of the above and wonder just how it us possible for the government and the Brexiteer Ministers to be quite so confidant of the success of Brexit when all informed commentators, business leaders etc are adamant as to the economic chaos and the many other ills that will follow from Brexit. It is almost as if they are taking performance enhancing drugs.What a risk for their political careers and the future of their party ( not to speak of the consequences for the UK ).
How will the Brexit fanatics be put back in the box now that they have been let free?
It now seems to be acceptable to be racist and to blame the EU for all our woes not just the migrants who come and contribute to our country. It was bad enough before but if Dakre and Murdoch are defeated and we manage to stay in the EU how will they be stopped from their incessant anti EU campaign?
We got into this terrible mess through hate and fear. We will not come out the other side intact if it is not brought under control in some realistic fashion.