PLUS: Winton's daughter on PM's refugee failings
View in your browser
The Times and Sunday Times
Friday May 24 2019
Red Box
Matt Chorley
By Matt Chorley
Good evening,
It was the longest, most drawn-out resignation in political history.

It is more than five months since she said she wouldn't fight the election. It is two months since she confirmed she wouldn’t do the second part of the Brexit negotiations. It is more than a week since she said she would say she would go.

It has been as drawn-out as one of those partwork magazine offers: build a prime ministerial resignation, first issue 99p, 52 weeks to collect.

Now all the pieces are in place and we know the answer to the big question: who will leave first, Theresa May or Britain?
Matt Chorley
Red Box Editor
Twitter icon @MattChorley
 
Listen and subscribe to the Red Box podcast
The briefing
  • It’s on: the leadership contest we’ve all been waiting for is underway. Sir Vince Cable fired the starting gun on the race to find someone to take charge of the Lib Dems. The new leader will be in place by July 23.

  • In other news, Theresa May has announced she will resign as Tory leader on June 7, remaining as prime minister until late July when a new leader has been elected. She broke down in tears at the end of her speech outside Downing Street before returning to her home in Maidenhead.

  • David Cameron knows how she feels. He said today: “It is extremely difficult and painful to step outside of Downing Street and say those things. This will be a very difficult day.”

  • Jeremy Hunt told an event in his Surrey constituency that he will run to be Tory leader. Sir Graham Brady quit as chairman of the 1922 committee, as he prepares to mount his own leadership bid.

  • Wondering where Boris Johnson has been? While May’s office was barricaded firmly shut this week, elsewhere in parliament he was throwing his door open.

  • Today’s trivia question: How many times did Theresa May use the word “Brexit” in her first speech as PM outside No 10 in 2016? Answer at the bottom of this email
May clears off, obviously
So it all ended in tears. I may in the past have given the impression that Theresa May was completely bloody hopeless; totally ill-suited for a job that she volunteered for; willing to tolerate appalling behaviour on behalf of the her bullying aides; utterly lacking in the political or human skills required to run a government and a country; a non-people person in a people business.

But then she wept at the end of her speech and it changed everything. Or it appeared to for some people.

Some were moved by it. I was rather more struck by the fact that the first time she showed anything approaching human emotion in public was at the loss of her own job. Not while meeting residents of Grenfell Tower. Or those caught up in the Windrush scandal. Or any victim of crime who believed her claims that you could cut police numbers without consequence.

The statement began with some of her greatest hits. “Ever since I first stepped through the door behind me as prime minister, I have striven to make the United Kingdom a country that works not just for a privileged few, but for everyone.” Odd use of the word “striven”. Never mind.

We also got “honour the result of the referendum”, “country that truly works for everyone and “burning injustices”. Anyone playing the Theresa May drinking game has got their weekend off to a flyer.

She talked of compromise. “Consensus can only be reached if those on all sides of the debate are willing to compromise.” she said. It could have been a message through time to her 2016 self, who vowed so often that "Brexit means Brexit”. She could have been addressing her 2017 self, who called an election not to unite people around a single goal but to destroy those standing in the way of her plan.

My TV cut out for a moment during the speech. When it returned she was talking about the Nazis. It took me a while to work out what was going on. She said: “For many years the great humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton — who saved the lives of hundreds of children by arranging their evacuation from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia through the Kindertransport — was my constituent in Maidenhead.

“At another time of political controversy, a few years before his death, he took me to one side at a local event and gave me a piece of advice. He said, ‘Never forget that compromise is not a dirty word. Life depends on compromise.’ He was right.”

He may have been right, but she was wrong to quote him today. Barbara Winton, Sir Nicholas’s daughter, was taken aback by the decision to invoke her father. She writes for Red Box tonight: “Sadly, such admiration has not led to following in his footsteps in relation to today’s child refugees. Like so many others who believe the UK should be welcoming more vulnerable refugee children, I increasingly despair at the situation facing child refugees in Europe today.”

May attempted to outline a legacy: the deficit, an industrial strategy, housing, plastics, air quality, the NHS, mental health, domestic violence, the union. But she will be remembered for only one thing: Brexit.

Back in 2016, launching her leadership challenge, May had declared: “We need a prime minister who is a tough negotiator and ready to do the job from day one.”

She was right, of course. It just wasn't her. It is defeatist nonsense to suggest that it was always going to be this way, that nobody could have played it differently.

She is an adult, an experienced politician. Nobody made her vow to leave the customs union, or elevate the Irish border to mythical status, or trigger Article 50 before having the Commons on board with her plan.

And crucially, when people told her it was going wrong, nobody made her plough on regardless. That was her choice. She chose to put her deal to the Commons three times when everyone said it would be defeated. She chose to side with the ERG time and again. She chose to make a speech this week unveiling a withdrawal agreement bill that even her closest allies in the cabinet refused to back.

Of course there are no easy answers. She was dealt a difficult hand, but she played it badly.

A small thought, too, for those who have tried to keep this dreadful show on the road. In particular her two spokesmen — James Slack and Paul Harrison — who have been the face of the crumbling regime in the lobby, dealing with endless questions, criticism and ridicule with patience and humour. It was an utterly thankless task but someone had to do it. They did it well. She didn’t deserve them.

A new poll today shows that 31 per cent of the public think she has been a “terrible” prime minister. In last week’s YouGov poll of Tory members it was even higher: 38 per cent.

Now she can go away and get to know the party. And so Theresa May clears off, obviously.
Red Box: Comment
Barbara Winton
Mrs May might quote my father, but she has failed to follow in his footsteps to help child refugees
Barbara Winton – Daughter of Sir Nicholas Winton

"My father’s legacy has been defined by his role in the Czech and Slovak Kindertransport when he organised the rescue of 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War. His active compassion and help for vulnerable child refugees in need of sanctuary from the threat of violence and an uncertain future in 1939 has been admired and honoured by many including the prime minister. Sadly, such admiration has not led to following in his footsteps in relation to today’s child refugees."

Read the full article >
The Sketch
Her mouth agape with distress, finally it all proved too much
Quentin Letts
Quentin Letts
Downing Street’s vale of tears has devoured another of the striders and strutters. At 10.10am Theresa May approached the end of her resignation announcement and it all proved too much for her. Mrs May, driest of biscuits, once most impenetrable of pebbles, sprang a leak.
Read the full sketch >
 
So what happens now?
Theresa May resigns as Tory leader on June 7, with the contest to replace her starting on Monday, June 10. The '92 Group of right-wing Tory MPs already has a hustings planned for that night and is asking people not to back anyone before then. Which seems a bit optimistic.

Contenders will have to formally enter the race that week before rounds of voting among Tory MPs to whittle the vast line-up down to two. This could take up the rest of the month.

There will then be hustings across the country for the 100,000 or so Tory members to see their would-be leader up close. Non-members and the public will also be involved, according to the Tory party chairman Brandon Lewis.

Postal voting will then take place, with the result announced by the time parliament rises for the summer at the end of July.

At that point May will recommend her successor to the Queen and they will be invited to form a government. And then starts the hard bit . . .
Poll of the day
I asked how you felt about Theresa May's departure. More than half were happy. Full result here
The best comment
Daniel Finkelstein
Theresa May’s premiership was a failure, but history will judge who was to blame
Daniel Finkelstein – The Times

"Extremely reserved, what some people interpreted as a tough-minded self discipline was in fact a crippling lack of self belief. As a result she was dominated by her own political advisers and incapable of building strong relations with her parliamentary colleagues. It was impossible to know what, or even if, she was thinking."

Read the full article >
Matthew Parris
What makes her tick? Self pity and a lack of empathy
Matthew Parris – The Times

“It is essentially the “knock-knock” question: “Is there anyone at home?” Well of course there is, there must be, there’s always an inner light, even if you can’t see it from the front window. But is there a prime minister at home? I’ve come to believe there never was. And prime minister was the person she so wanted to be. Could this explain her strange reluctance ever to sleep at No 10?”

Read the full article >
Oliver Wright
How the next Tory leader could affect Brexit
Oliver Wright – The Times
Patrick Kidd
All hailed the Brexit Queen but she quickly lost her lustre
Patrick Kidd – Political sketch-writer and diarist for The Times
Trivia
Theresa May did not mention Brexit by name at all in her first speech. She said: “I know because we’re Great Britain, that we will rise to the challenge. As we leave the European Union, we will forge a bold new positive role for ourselves in the world, and we will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us.”

Thanks to my colleague Henry Zeffman for pointing this out.
 
Follow us
Facebook Twitter Email
This email is from a member of the News UK group. News Corp UK & Ireland Limited, with its registered office at 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF, United Kingdom is the holding company for the News UK Group and is registered in England No. 81701. VAT number GB 243 8054 69.

To see our privacy policy, click here.