PM needs to show her party that she believes Brexit is good news for Britian, says Isabel Hardman
Tory eurosceptics seem far less concerned about what she’ll say about Brexit than they do about how she’ll say it
REPORTS that Theresa May has managed to frustrate even the Queen is the final confirmation the nation is officially fed up with being told: “Brexit means Brexit.”
So, the good news.
The Prime Minister now plans to give a speech setting out the Government’s vision for leaving in the New Year.
Which could end the fear that the Government is not revealing its strategy because it does not have one.
Given most speeches have to include actual sentences, there is a great deal of excitement about what Mrs May might say.
But the less good news I hear, is that very little work is going on at the moment in No10 to prepare for the speech.
The Brexit department is still working on its review of how leaving will affect different sectors of the economy, but it is also pouring considerable effort into stopping Tory MPs from getting too agitated.
One source says: “For a lot of people in our party, the sense of betrayal over the years about what they’ve been told the EU will be like and what the reality has turned out to be is so great that they think they’re going to be betrayed again by Brexit.”
Mrs May has been working hard on the Remainers in her party too.
A meeting in No10 last week with prominent pro-EU MPs (not including Nicky Morgan, naturally, after her Trousergate comments) was “well-tempered”.
The Prime Minister can afford to be relaxed about this group of Remoaners, as they don’t have a clear leader to challenge her.
She doesn’t understand her power to set the Brexit tone
There have been a few grumbles that Mrs May isn’t spending enough time in the Commons charming backbenchers, but most MPs accept that she is busy travelling to meet foreign leaders to get them onside ahead of a very testing 2017.
Charming European counterparts is far more important than charming lonely backbenchers.
So everything is calm in Westminster — for the moment.
This means there is very little pressure on the Prime Minister to reveal very much detail at all about what Britain’s arrangements for leaving the EU will be.
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“She could get away with saying very little,” says one Cabinet minister.
Indeed, the more she says, the harder her aides will have to work to stop a betrayal narrative taking hold among eurosceptics who don’t feel she is going far enough.
In fact, Tory eurosceptics seem far less concerned about what she’ll say about Brexit than they do about how she’ll say it.
“She doesn’t quite understand her power to set the tone about Brexit,” says one senior Conservative.
“At the moment the narrative that Brexit is bad and means we’re retreating from the world is taking hold, but she’s the Prime Minister and can give us a much more upbeat line.
“She should say Britain should be a more actively engaged country in the world.”
Whatever Brexit turns out to mean, Mrs May needs to show her party that she believes it is good news for this country and the rest of the world too.
And that she knows what she’s doing.
- Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator. James Forsyth is away.
Corbyn is a Kara-Jokey
’TIS the season for karaoke.
Jeremy Corbyn was subjected to rather spiky renditions of Blairite anthem Things Can Only Get Better and chants of “We Want Tony” from hostile Labour MPs at his party’s knees-up.
Such is the state of the Labour Party that Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry got a warmer welcome when she gatecrashed the real enemy’s Christmas party – turning up to sing the D:Ream hit at a Tory bash.
Whinges at whip crackin'
THERESA MAY might be able to get away with saying very little in her new year speech on Europe.
But the Prime Minister and her enforcers seem pretty on edge.
Tory MPs are exasperated with the heavy-handed behaviour of their whips.
Ministers are being recalled from overseas trips because whips are nervous about votes in the Commons – only for the Government to win with a comfortable majority each time.
MPs don’t mind giving up travelling to save the Government’s bacon when a vote is on a knife edge.
But when they miss out on important meetings, or trips to exciting countries, for no good reason, resentment builds.
“They have managed to annoy every department, minister and backbencher as far as I can tell,” grumbles one minister.
Why are the whips in such a tizz? It’s the same reason that No10 reacts so badly to leaks about its Brexit work – no one wants to highlight how fragile the Government really is.
If the Government’s opponents organise defeats in the Commons, then we’re heading for an early election.
And if there’s one thing the whips hate more than having to disappoint a minister whose bags were packed for an exciting trip, it’s having to break the news to an entire party that an election is on the way.
A class war on horizon
ONE looming row that could leave the whips in even more of a spin is a set of changes to the way schools are funded.
Tory MPs have campaigned for years for reforms to the funding formula, complaining that it leaves rural schools out of pocket.
But the new formula has upset those campaigners.
Graham Brady, who chairs the powerful Conservative 1922 Committee, pointed out in the Commons on Monday that all secondary schools and some primary schools in his seat will be worse off.
School headteachers, governors and angry parents make a formidable group no backbencher would be wise to ignore.
So unless ministers show willing to change the formula again, they could find themselves being sent to the bottom of the class.
Reed going cheers Jezza fans
THE Tories had made Jamie Reed their top target for defecting – but they were as surprised as his Labour colleagues when he announced he was quitting Parliament.
Many of Reed’s colleagues are as unhappy as he is, but none of them fancy defecting either.
They are now oddly cheered by the prospect of proclaiming Jeremy Corbyn’s message loud and clear on the doorstep in Reed’s constituency of Copeland, in Cumbria – they see this as the perfect test of the left-winger’s claim to be the Messiah.
It would hardly count as a Christmas miracle for Labour’s own JC to retain a seat which has been red since the 1930s while the Government flails on Brexit.
But if Labour does hold on, watch Corbyn’s spinners act as if he has just turned water into wine.