In this age of the image, when pictures are flashed around the world in an instant, I believe the image of a smiling Theresa May hand-in-hand with President Trump may be the most iconic of her Premiership, and, because of the power of images, will hasten her decline.
This was a catastrophic mistake of image presentation by the Prime Minister. To be pictured smiling in the company of this President who is so widely disliked, condemned and feared in this country, and to be recorded admiring and praising his victory, was bad enough. These were cringe-making, teeth-gritting sacrifices, perhaps, for the necessity of the continued international leadership of Britain and the USA.
But to hold hands with someone in public identifies you with them. It signifies friendship, closeness and shared values. British values do not appear compatible with some of those already declared and now being acted out by President Trump. Within hours of his meeting Theresa May, the President was signing the Executive Order imposing a three-month ban on entry to the USA of refugees and other incomers from seven countries with mainly Muslim population.
This has of course produced a fierce reaction, both within the USA and around the world. But Theresa May’s immediate response was to say that the US was responsible for its own refugee policy. This is a Prime Minister who has shown no sympathy for refugees, no urgency for example to allow into Britain the lone child refugees entitled to come here who have been stranded in France.
The foreign policy of this Government, under Prime Minister Cameron and now under May, seems to be subordinate to trade policy. Each prime-ministerial visit is primarily aimed to secure a lucrative trade deal. Yet Theresa May is prepared to abandon the set-up of the most successful trading relationship this country has or could have, the internal market of the EU. In pursuing her ‘hard Brexit’ plans.
The writing is surely on the wall for this government, with its principal ministers who forgo commitments, abandon principles, reverse course unashamedly and indulge in post-truth telling for the sake of staying in power. That image of May and Trump will not need to be etched on a stone slab to form part of the basis of their funerary monument.
* Katharine Pindar is a long-standing member of the Cumberland Lib Dems
45 Comments
I think the answer to your question should come from that bust which Trump has just brought back into the Oval Office:
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
No, it’s clearly not the end, it’s not even the beginning of the end… but there is that other thing on Churchill’s list …
This moment provides those who oppose May’s government, whether they are pro- Remain or not, with a point at which they can ask her supporters, ‘Is this what you wanted? Really?’
I hope it emboldens Conservative critics of her agenda, particularly.
I genuinely cannot see how ‘the writing is on the wall’, though. There will be months and years of slow attrition to wear down this government.
I am surprised at you Katharine.
Your suggesting there is something more to TM holding hands with Trump than what it really was.
It is not like TM had a choice, from the way it looked to me on the tellie, Trump took hold of May’s hand, she could hardly pull her hand away in those circumstances with all the camera’s upon them , it would have caused a diplomatic disaster.
What were Trumps motives in taking hold of TM hand, condescending perhaps? trying to make himself look better amongst women after the terrible things he has said previously?
But then if you look closely enough, her hand is on the bottom, suggesting that he is using her for physical support, rather than her using him.
There is plenty for you to criticise May for and disagree with, but this just seems desperate to be honest.
Odious though Trump’s ban is, it’s worth pointing out that six of the seven countries he has targeted do not allow entry to anybody with an Israeli passport.
And while I appreciate the argument that we ought to expect better from the self-proclaimed leader of the free world, and that many of the people affected by this will themselves be fleeing from the kind of intolerance those anti-Israeli travel bans represent, nevertheless it’s legitimate to ask how many of the people protesting today are just as outraged by the actions of those other countries; since if we “tolerate intolerance” from some quarters, we can’t be too shocked when others turn that way.
These are difficult, awful times, perhaps the worst in my 62 years. There is so much at stake. There is no hiding place from climate change and the modern version of fascism. It is sad but true that we now live in disunited times. The people that signed the petition to ban the Trump state visit voted to remain in the EU. It is impossible to unite these divergent forces but it is essential that the Liberal view prevails. As Labour descends into chaos, the old war between liberalism and conservatism is re-engaged. I am doing my bit by standing in the county council elections in a narrowly remain area. We must all now stand up and be counted.
Theresa May also said that the UK is responsible for the UK’s refugee policy. By adding UK aid to refugees in countries such as Jordan her spin-doctors have created something which is partially true.
The UK is also different from the USA in that the Human Rights Act implements the European Convention on Human Rights since slightly before 1/10/2000. An asylum claim is simultaneously considered for Articles 2,3,4 ECHR because of the overlap. The right to life, the prohibition of cruel and inhuman treatment and the prohibition of slavery are Absolute.
What would Eleanor Roosevelt have thought? and said? … and the pig got up and slowly walked away?
https://thewire.in/103870/canadas-trudeau-welcomes-refugees-turned-away-by-us/
@Roger Billins
“The people that signed the petition to ban the Trump state visit voted to remain in the EU.”
Erm I voted to leave the EU and I signed the petition.
Just because I want to leave the EU and want to control our immigration and take back our sovereignty does not mean I support the likes of Trump.
Let’s be honest here this is by no means the end of the May government, or anywhere near so. This article is way over the top and this event will be forgotten in this country in a few days time, as May had no involvement in the signing of the exec order/ creation of the policy.
Even if May forgets about the way Trump acted towards minorities during his campaign and how he seems determined to continue that behaviour as president, Trump denies climate change, supports torture and rather than getting rid of the swamp seems determined to expand it.
In the first few months of government May seemed to admit that the harsh austerity motivated cuts of the previous Tory PM, which often hit the already poor the hardest and had gone beyond starting to hit “just getting by” families, were wrong but now is betraying British values as “Teresa the appeaser” in order to beg for a trade deal that we didn’t need until her vision of a hard brexit started to seem a reality. She has appointed a foreign secretary who was determined to sell off London to the highest bidder while making it impossible for many Brits to live there to guide her and is simply following his error-prone, backwards (how much for a water cannon?) thinking.
It’s true that May didn’t have much choice when Trump took her hand, but isn’t that rather the point? She rushed to see him because she’s desperate to be seen to be doing something outside the EU, and the way Trump patted her hand just underlines how he views her, and us, as the junior partner. May’s reticence at criticising a policy we all knew she disagreed with, says it all, and the fact some Conservatives are publicly showing their queasiness can’t be good for her.
She will survive, and we’ve got the likes of Rees-Mogg excusing her of everything and acting incredulous that not everyone agrees, but this will have made some of her core support uneasy.
@Fiona
“She rushed to see him because she’s desperate to be seen to be doing something outside the EU”
I don’t think you are really being fair to TM here.
Every time a New British Prime Minister or American President is put into office, one of the first heads of state meeting is nearly always between the UK/US.
Now whether you agree or not with the “supposed” special relationship that we have, which personally i think is a crock of …… You really shouldn’t criticise TM for doing something which every prime Minister has done before her. Whether we agree / like Trump or not is irrelevant, he was democratically elected by the American Citizens, this was there balls up that they have to live with and only they can rectify it. Yes there decision affects us all on an international front, however, that is their decision and their decision alone, just as Brexit was our decision.
Yes TM should say when she does not agree with Trump, but she / we certainly should not snub him.
I do not believe she rushed to see him to see him to be seeing doing something outside the EU.
@Matt, your perception of May’s trip is clearly different to mine, and those of many others. I didn’t claim she should snub him, or never go to visit. I admitted that it wasn’t her fault that Trump grabbed her hand, and that I was confident she didn’t agree with him, so I think you are being fair to me when you judge my judgement.
Maybe I have a higher opinion of what some Tory voters think, and are prepared to put up with. Of course, some will defend anything and everything she does, but there have been some speaking out about her hesitation to criticise, and that means there are many more who are quietly troubled by it. As I said, I think she’ll survive this, because enough of them will try to look to their shared goals, and the Tories generally are good at ignoring their differences to keep the upper hand. Nevertheless, I stand by my opinion that this is damaging episode for her.
No. Sadly, this is one of those causes that has a huge pull for liberals and nowhere near the same traction in the wider world. Bush and Blair were widely reviled over their monstrous wars in the ME. Millions of people turned out in protest. Both were comfortably re-elected.
I do not know if this is anything like the beginning of the end of anything, but it is very obvious that this is an image that will not go away.
This is a case of a picture conveying more than words can say. I find it very hard to imagine Trump getting away with this with Angela Merkel, nor do I imagine he would try the same with Luxembourg’s gay Liberal PM Xavier Bettel.
@ Fiona, thank you for your opinion, which of course I share, that this is a damaging episode for Theresa May. @ Matt: you know, Matt, that you and I just do not see things in the same light. It really is irrelevant, in my view, as to how the hand-holding occurred: my point is that this is a picture which will be shown over and over again in the May Premiership, and will cause feelings of disquiet among many British people at the association it suggests, if President Trump continues to offend our sensibilities as is now the case. It is not an association that I can easily reject, since I see May’s Government in the poor light I mention above.
Katharine makes such a powerful and individual point here it is worth engaging with beyond the who took who’s hand !
The seventies songwriter David Gates , of the group, Bread, a tedious title, for a wonderful band, wrote a song , much recorded, called, If.
” If a picture paints a thousand words , then why can’t I paint you ?
The words would never show , the you I’ve come to know !”
A photo is a picture, and David Gates, not a writer like Churchill, who got his Nobel prize like Kennedy’s Pulitzer, for writing !
But therein lie the nub of this. Nor is May a Churchill, or Trump, a Kennedy !
They were trying , too hard! Churchill never did such a thing in public. Kennedy only in a crisis in private.
I do not think it needs us to seek out the extraordinarily poignant words of the remarkable ex British Prime Minister.
The lead singer -songwriter of a long since disbanded band did it more appropriately.
These two don,t know each other at all. The picture says it all !
Some say the image is the end of T.M. I would be surprised.
What interests me is that many of the people who are very excited about that image, are also those thinking that the June 23 vote,in which more people voted for one thing than has ever happened before, is just a snapshot of opinion, which shouldn’t be considered as valid even now, less than a year after the vote took place.
Matt,
“I don’t think you are really being fair to TM here”
Oh I think the section you quoted from Fiona is very true indeed, that May was completely desperate to meet Trump and exchange mutual congratulations. May needs good news, and the support of the president of the US, especially promising a trade deal to save us from losing the EU market, is a vital part of May’s plan to create an economic justification for Brexit.
However, Trump managed to torpedo the good PR she was hoping for by behaving in a way her voters are likely to see as unreasonable, such as banning tory MPs. Holding her hand was a little too close a relationship for comfort, even before the bad publicity broke over immigration.
The impression is plainly swapping one master we dont agree with for another. If the Brexit vote was intended to boost UK sovereignty, this does not do it. Inded it begins to underline the argument that the kind of independence Brexiteers seem to have voted for will not be achieved by leaving the EU. Something of an own goal by May. I doubt the calls to cancel the state visit will go down well in Trumpland either. On both sides the PR value of the meeting is undermined.
Tynan
June 23rd 2016 was “a snapshot” of opinion, like every other vote. I see you are arguing for it to be regarded as something more permanent. Opinion on pretty much everything moves around, and, OK, since the celebrated days of old, when The Currant Bun could declare “Up yours, Delors”, several of the right wing press corps have treated the EU as some kind of Aunt Sally, throwing verbal bricks at it whenever possible. That DOES have an effect.
And the rewriting of history to suggest that the 1975 referendum was “merely a trade deal”. It was not – it was a deliberate act to say that the UK was ready to work cooperatively, politically, with its neighbours (important concept, that – neighbours!) to reduce the likelihood of the tragic recurrence of war between our countries. It has evolved to where we have a rather more integrated approach to some of the huge international problems of our day, which surely has to be a good thing.
Partly, of course, because the Remain campaign focused on the possible economic downside, much of which has not yet been felt, people who voted Leave are looking at things and saying “well, we haven’t seen it”. They will, this year. For Tynan and others with entrenched Leave views, they will most likely take the view – “we knew that there would be some pain, we can take that” (there have always been extremist leavers, Farage, Sir Teddy Taylor, the famous Tory – Unionist MP from the 60s and 70s Bill Cash MP etc). But many will realise they are damaging their own and British interests, and they will need an outlet to express that. They have been misled, and in many cases allowed themselves to be so.
It is worth hanging on to one of Katharine’s original points, namely foreign policy being subservient to trade policy. This can be seen as part of the Conservative Party’s unwillingness to commit itself to anything politically relating to conservative political principles which in terms of its internal dynamic is seen as very dangerous. Yet for the health of the body politic we need a Conservative Party which has open, confident political debates. Alas the anti-politics trends on both sides of the Atlantic make such a development highly unlikely. The hard task for us all is to persuade people that politics, local, national and international is one of the most civilised of human activities, without which the future of the planet is indeed dire.
Theresa May’s ‘Rose Garden’ moment?
To me, this is not about challenging the result of the referendum. The referendum was not about leaving the EU for forge a new partnership with the US (I accept it was for some people), or even on whether the UK would do a deal with Trump.
Repudiating Trump or even just slowing down the speed of engagement does not undo the referendum. It might make the case for different post-referendum options; I for one am still amazed that the UK government (with the vocal support of the UK media)has been so quick to turn down India’s offer of a deal involving an immigration element, but so quick to run after other (white nations) such as the US, Australia and New Zealand.
Looking at the disucssions within conservatism, I can’t help but be reminded of the ancient Tory divide over ‘Imperial Preference’.
Theresa May’s ‘Rose Garden’ moment?
Well, maybe; but remember that five years after his ‘Rose Garden’ moment, David Cameron won a majority in Parliament…
I’d just like to add that my comment #1 on this post was not merely a joke!
Churchill told Britain (more eloquently than I’m doing) that the War would be long and hard, but that we might have reached a turning point. I think that is precisely where we stand with May’s government.
What is missing, however, is any determination from the official Opposition to “fight on the beaches… fight on the landing grounds ….fight in the fields and in the streets…”. Churchill knew that a determination to harry the enemy ceaselessly was absolutely essential. Quite what he would have made of Corbyn’s “we should not frustrate the Brexit process”, I hesitate to say. Knowing Mr Churchill, I fear his language might have got him banned from LDV…
It’s down to us, then!
“This was a catastrophic mistake of image presentation by the Prime Minister. To be pictured smiling in the company of this President who is so widely disliked, condemned and feared in this country”
I’m not sure that’s actually true. He is certainly despised by many, but like in America I think opinion is pretty much 50/50. A new petition was launched yesterday with hardly any – if any – publicity saying “Donald Trump should make a State Visit to the United Kingdom”. In a day it has got over 86,000 signatures and people are signing at an alarming rate.
No Dav, Theresa May is the Nick Clegg in this ‘Rose Garden’ moment.
He is certainly despised by many, but like in America I think opinion is pretty much 50/50
I don’t think there’s many who actually like him, but I think there are a lot of people who, however much they personally despise the man, recognise that the fact he is the President of the USA means that the Prime Minister has to behave diplomatically towards him for the sake of the relationship between the two countries.
There’s a certain degree to which you have to separate the position from the awfulness of the person who, at the moment, happens to hold it. Like saluting the uniform and not the wearer.
My thought from the image at the top of the article was ‘Rose Garden’ too. It was ill-judged in terms of Nick Clegg because it was deeply irritating to those who regarded the Tories as their principal enemies, whether they were LibDem, Labour or floating voters. But it also probably went down badly with Tories who didn’t like the LibDems and some of them got payback by voting against David Cameron in the Referendum. Meanwhile, David Cameron is in retirement while Nick Clegg is still an MP doing a job he’s well-qualified for.
Would Donald Trump have been so touchy-feely with a male leader?
On the whole, this picture or clip deserves an airing frequently during the next few years as the hopes that May and Trump are shown to be oversold.
Was she not briefed on what to do when Trump (inevitably) touched her in an embarrassing way? Were the Americans not told very firmly indeed that this was one woman (perhaps the first ever) that Trump must not under any circumstances touch? A formal handshake and nothing more?
Was she not briefed on what to do when Trump (inevitably) touched her in an embarrassing way?
What ought she to have done? She couldn’t exactly peel his hand off, in full view of the cameras of the world.
Were the Americans not told very firmly indeed that this was one woman (perhaps the first ever) that Trump must not under any circumstances touch?
When has Trump ever taken that sort of advice? You might as well ask, ‘Was Trump not told he shouldn’t insult the parents of dead war heroes?’
The answer to the question has to be no. The writing is not on the wall for this government. To think so, is just wishful thinking. No one who is a serious student of UK politics could think so. As Glenn has pointed out Blair’s closeness to George W Bush and the invasion of Iraq was not the end of the Blair government, and Blair won the 2005 general election. In the UK a PM normally either leaves office after losing a general election or at a time of their own choosing. I can think of four PMs in the last hundred years or so where they have been forced out – Asquith, Lloyd George, Chamberlain and Thatcher (Eden would most likely have been). Two were during a major war, Lloyd George because he lost the support of a majority of another party’s MPs, (Eden after the Suez crisis) and Thatcher for a number of reasons, which had come to peak in 1990, including her ratings always being worse than the party’s and Labour having a lead in the opinion polls for 18 months.
Theresa May’s “holding” of Trumps hand will not make the Labour Party any more popular in the UK. Being close to a President who is unpopular in the UK has never affected an UK election. While some Conservative voters would be against Britain having the same policy as ordered by Trump I don’t think many of them would prefer to have Jeremy Corbyn as PM. It is never going to be as toxic to Conservative voters as the “Rose Garden” was for Liberal Democrat voters.
The invasion of Iraq was, as Michael says, not the end for Blair or for his government. However, it can be seen as signalling the beginning of a split that might in future prove to have dealt the Labour party a final blow.
The death of the Tory party has been much predicted and has never happened yet, but there is a split here in terms of Conservatism -is it a free-trade or tariff-protectionist party? Is it internationalist, or isolationist? For years it has sought to be both pro-European and pro-US; what will it do when there is a stark, hard choice? What about if Trump makes good on his criticism of the UN and seeks to de-fund it?
If that split inside Conservatism deepens, as Tories choose pragmatically to blindly follow Trump in order to secure their interpretation of Brexit, this meeting in Washington could prove to be the beginning of the end of the Tory party.
As much as I would love to see the end of the May Government, it won’t happen despite the perfect opportunity (and the urgent need) right now. Labour will blow it, because they “respect the referendum result”. Which leads me to the hand-holding:
Both execute major mistakes their people voted for. Trump to satisfy his base, May to sustain the legitimacy of her premiership and build a base in the process. Trump still happily, May increasingly so.
If one believes the monstrous idiocy of Brexit must be carried out, because misguided people (who will suffer most from its consequences) wanted it, then one must refrain from criticising Trump, who is just fulfilling his own idiotic promises to his misguided voters.
What Britain does is a lot more damaging to its national wellbeing and irreversible. The US political system will be more resilient and has a better chance of self-correcting: the governing Republicans will wake up sooner against their administration than HM’s opposition against a Tory-Government.
Britain’s desperate approaches to self-centered and instable regimes (Trump, Erdogan) will not help but rather backfire.
@Arnold Kiel
“because misguided people (who will suffer most from its consequences) wanted it, ”
Arnold, I keep seeing this, or very similar posts and it has me curious, what and whom are you actually referring to, is this a social class thing?
Who are the misguided and why will they suffer the consequences more than others?
@Michael BG. As a serious student of UK politics, how is it you are not recalling the sudden fall of David Cameron, after only a few months as Premier without the handicap of Coalition? How triumphant he looked in May 2015, how set for longevity, with his defeated rivals around him!
But in fact I was not suggesting a similar sudden ignominious departure for Theresa May, but that the scene in the USA has begun to weaken her and hence her Government, and this may well be the beginning of a decline leading to their defeat in 2020, or possibly to an earlier General Election if the Brexit negotiations fail miserably.
Thanks, everyone, for contributing so interestingly to this debate. I will make a broader comment later on.
@ matt
“The death of the Tory party has been much predicted and has never happened yet,”
I can’t image why anyone would predict the death of the Conservative Party. The Tory Party of course nearly did die (down to 106 MPs in 1754 and Wikipedia gives no numbers for them in 1768, 1774, 1780, 1784, 1796; it is only in 1802 that the label Tory is applied [opponents of Lord North called his supporters Tories in the 1774 Parliament]). There is likely to always be a conservative party in the UK and it makes much more sense to call it the “Conservative Party” than say the “Unionist Party”. Once we leave the EU the Conservative party will be united against re-joining the EU for a long time and it will fluctuate between being “neo-liberal” and conservative.
@ David Allen – yes, David, I do think this could be a turning point, and as you suggested, the end of the beginning: and you are so right, it is up to us now. We need to fight this Tory Government more strongly – as Roger Billins says, stand up and be counted. The picture as Lorenzo suggests, quoting a song, is indeed worth a thousand words, because it ties in with our perception from the visit, expressed by several of you and hopefully widely shared, that Theresa May was rather desperate for (thanks, DJ) ‘a trade deal that we didn’t need till the hard Brexit vision’, and then gave too slow and limited a response to the President’s illiberal Executive order banning and limiting refugees.
@ Geoff Reid: Geoff, I like your thought on the Conservative Party’s unwillingness to commit itself to Conservative political principles, which as it happens my local Chairman was musing about this afternoon as we stuffed leaflets in the Copeland by-election office. To me, this image casts light on what the Conservatives would like to keep hidden – namely, the fluidity of their principles and the narrowness of their vision.
Support for Remain, and for the EU internal market? Doesn’t matter now. What to do with an untruthful Brexiteer only out for himself? Make him Foreign Secretary. What counts in foreign affairs, except for trade deals? What matters at all in the long run for these Tory leaders except power and profit?
That contrasts utterly with our Party’s open, outward-looking, internationally co-operative and generous spirit. We have to show the public what is behind the Government’s mask, and this image is a powerful aid.
@matt, hi again
Misguided are usually the less educated. We also know that they are on average older and more rural. Consequently, they depend more on tax credits, benefits, pensions, council housing, and public health provision, all of which will go downhill after Brexit.
I am just squaring the typical sociodemographics of leavers with Britain’s economic future, no “social class thing”.
Of course there are also the rich Brexiteers, who just want to rid themselves from EU-rules. No ned to worry about them.
I watched much of the meeting between Mrs May and Trump and there were a few cringe worthy moments. However, I think the photo that Katharine has shown above, which is the one that has between generally used in the media, is a fairly favourable one of Mrs May. She just looks like she’s kindly assisting an elderly president. I think if they are attacking Mrs May they are using the wrong photo, I could see the Tories using this picture in their own campaign material.
At PMQ on 1/2/2017 the Labour leader asked about the 1951 refugee convention. He may know more detail than he expressed. The former Home Secretary is likely to be aware of more detail, but neither provided it.
http://www.unhcr.org/uk/protection/convention/3d9abe177/reservations-declarations-1951-refugee-convention.html
The EU insists that all member states implement the refugee convention in full, including the 1967 Protocol, for instance Hungary did and Malta did, which has allowed some countries, such as Turkey, not to do so.
So, Theresa May doubtless feels pleased at the passage as expected of the Second Reading in the Commons of the Bill for Britain to leave the EU, with a large majority. That drama has weeks, months and years still to play out. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister said at PMQ that President Trump’s travel ban on refugees and migrants is ‘Divisive and wrong.’ Those were the very words she had used in December 2015, the Guardian recalls, about Trump’s suggestion that Muslims should be banned from the USA. At that time Trump was still fighting to be the Republican candidate and May was Home Secretary. So, is she sticking to her principles? It would rather seem that it is easy for her to proclaim good principles in the sanctuary of the British Government than when talking in person to the man who is subverting them.
There are, Richard Underhill, 60,000 UNHCR-nominated refugees left in limbo by Trump’s Executive Order, according to the same Guardian report by Alan Travis yesterday. It seems that the international system of refugee protection established by the 1951 Refugee Convention is now under threat, and Theresa May is no defender of it, judging by her party conference speech of October 2015 suggesting limiting protections, and her declining of UNHCR involvement in nominating the miserably small total of 20,000 refugees being allowed to come here by 2020. There can be no generous action expected from her on behalf of refugees to distinguish herself from President Trump other than by fine words: the smiling, hand-holding image will persist.
@ Matt (Bristol): Matt, I like your comment of yesterday afternoon, 3.49, on the splits of Conservatism, which continue the debate on their shaky principles. You point out the difficulty of knowing whether they are for free trade or protectionist, internationalist or isolationist, and that whether they are pro EU or pro USA is now a stark choice. You suggest that if that split continues, and the Tories ‘choose pragmatically to blindly follow Trump to secure their interpretation of Brexit’, then May’s meeting with Trump could prove to be the beginning of the end of the Tory party. I only disagree with you on your final word. I think (as others have said above) the Tory party itself is durable: it is the Tory Government that I believe may decline and fall by 2020.
The view of Theresa May as a ‘bridge’ between the EU and Donald Trump is somewhat laughable, given her rejection of the EU founding principles and her deploring of Trump’s action on refugees and migrants. As hapless refugees who had gone through the hoops for acceptance in America wonder how to endure this latest blow, Mrs Few-Friends and No-Principles offers help to nobody.
Katharine — I think I should have said, ‘the Tory party as we have known it’. As to the end of the government, we’ll have to beg to differ.
I think – so far – that the government will endure to 2020 (probably under May, but even if the leadership changes I don’t look for a change in strategy), but in the next term some of its chickens will come home to roost and a split may happen. The only person really putting their head above the parapet so far is Ruth Davidson. Given she only has one MP in parliament, even a split with the Scottish Conservatives would not be a major problem for Theresa May.
But until there is an effective UK-wide parliamentary opposition with a strong English component to threaten MPs’ seats and/or a clear alternative way of thinking to show them the way forward, the remaining adherents of the Cameron agenda will not risk a split, they will assume they can intrigue in private and wait for Theresa to go.
I think that means she will not go, because she will not go until she is pushed, no-one will want her job (the last leadership election being so bruising) and there is no clear rival.
Anyway, this is speculation.
Matt (Bristol). Thanks, Matt, but I don’t think we do differ: I think that ‘the end of the beginning’, as David Allen aptly put it, is now, but that this Tory Government will most likely endure until 2020. I was taking the long view, as I think you do. There isn’t an effective Opposition to unseat them before then, and as for May, I don’t see any possible contender now – Davidson, as you suggest, is unlikely because of her being a Scottish MP. The only circumstance I can see that could lead to May’s, and possibly her Government’s, earlier downfall is disastrous Brexit negotiations. If she insists on only letting Parliament have a say in the end, as opposed to the people in another Referendum as our party demands, and if Parliament (already restive) won’t accept the outcome offered, there could be an earlier General Election. We are in for an interesting couple of years, in which I hope talks are held with our Liberal allies in the EU to propose EU reforms, in accordance with the developing impetus for change of the other nations.This is indeed speculation, but we are now in an undetermined state.
What next can Theresa May do to darken her reputation? Not content with the love-in with Trump, or the benignity with Erdogan, or the entertainment of Netanyahu while he was planning to extend the illegal settlements, she has now declared that Parliament must finally accept the terms of her Government’s negotiations with the EU or revert to WTO rules. The rightness of our call for the people to have the final say through another referendum has never seemed so clearly demonstrated, while meantime our Prime Minister takes increasingly resolute steps into the wrong side of history.