Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

May is now stripped of all political power. But the political pot is at boiling point with many elements bubbling around. Here are some of them.

A spokesman for the DUP has said  his party’s toxic attitudes to abortion, sexual orientation, climate change and other issues, were shared within many parts of the Tory party. If that idea takes off, the Tory party is electorally dead.

The DUP is anti austerity, pro triple lock, pro universal winter fuel allowance, anti dementia tax, anti hard Brexit and pro an open border with Ireland. Hardly an ally of the Tories surely?

The Scottish Conservatives are anti austerity, pro soft Brexit, pro triple lock and winter fuel allowance and anti dementia tax. All of that is opposite of the Tory manifesto.

The Cabinet is  split between soft and hard Brexit supporters. But negotiations are about to begin. The threat to walk away is simply ridiculous. The other side knows May is on borrowed time and parliament would force her back to the table. There is absolutely no majority in parliament or the country for a hard Brexit which damages the economy even in the short term.

The reality is that the whole political agenda and conversation has now swung Labour’s way. There are more members in parliament broadly in sympathy with its new vision of a different political and economic settlement, than there are in sympathy with the old vision of the Tories. May will be able, we imagine, to get her Queen’s speech through, although it could well suffer amendments. She will get her budget through only if austerity is rolled back and it contains significant measures to stimulate the economy, which means more printing and borrowing. She cannot have her grammar schools. Free school lunches will stay. The list is long and growing.

So May, her cabinet and and the unhappy Tories in the Commons will bear all the burdens of office, but the power is already with Corbyn.  And after nearly forty years in the Commons he knows where all the levers are and how to pull them. That is why he looks so chipper.

If May were to return to the Palace and inform the Queen that she could not, after all, form a government, the Queen would have to send for Corbyn and let him have a go. Likewise if she failed to get her Queen’s Speech through the Commons. But if she falls after that, because the government is in place,  it would be correct for her to remain as caretaker while her party elects a new leader, whom the Queen would then send for. Corbyn would not get a look in.

It was therefore critical to the survival of the Tory government that May’s rumoured intention to resign on Friday morning was stopped by the senior members of the Cabinet and why they took control at that point. From then on May is doing their bidding, not the other way around and as soon as they have managed to get the government constitutionally on the road they plan to dump her. She was obliged to fire her two minders, without whom she is intellectually sterile, but to avoid her becoming dysfunctional, they allowed her old university chum, the amiable and emollient Damien Green, to be appointed First Secretary. Because he is an ardent Remainer they demanded she bring in a balancing high profile Brexiteer. May’s arch enemy, Michael Gove, the man who knifed Boris, made a surprise return. It is not clear whether Gove and Boris have made up and demanded his inclusion or whether May appointed Gove to shackle Boris.

Constitutionally May is now safe unless some new difficulty arises before the State Opening and the Queen’s Speech. She could fall if the Commons does not pass the Queens Speech, but after that she will go when the Cabinet decides. Because, although British Prime Ministers and Governments are possessed of extraordinary executive powers delegated by the Queen, these are conditional. Parliament has the power to sack the government by expressing no confidence in it, in which case the prime minister goes down too. But the Cabinet can lose confidence in the prime minister, in which case the incumbent goes but the government survives. As in the cases of Neville Chamberlain and Margaret Thatcher and in due course May herself.

If, through some circumstance not yet foreseen, May falls and Corbyn is sent for but cannot get a Labour Queen’s Speech through the Commons, there would be a general election. Labour would win it with a hefty majority. The Tories will do anything to avoid that happening until they have a new leader in place.

The issue of whether the the government can continue in its impartial role within the terms of the Good Friday Agreement if one of the parties against whom it may have to mediate, the DUP, is propping up the Tory party in office at Westminster, is political not constitutional. Any MP elected to parliament is constitutionally entitled to take part in government. The appropriateness of such action is political, as are the consequences, however unwelcome.

Finally the delusional May has now, I think, learned that it is not her government, as she said during the election in her I Me Mine campaign, but Her Majesty’s Government. The power of the Prime Minister is in the hands of the Cabinet and the power of the government is in the hands of the House of Commons. The power of the Commons is in the hands of the People. This she is now discovering. But it is too late. She is now politically neutered as all can see and in office only to keep the Tory party in power. It dare not return to the People until it has got rid of her.