Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

There can hardly be a political appointment of less significance than vice-chair of the Tory party, but two of them have today resigned over May’s plan for  Brexit. It should be the Prime Minister’s aim to rid her administration, even down to such obscure levels, of hard Brexiteers who cannot support a sensible economy driven Brexit. May’s plan, which is in parts unworkable, nevertheless signals for the first time that the government has an idea what it wants and forms a jumping off point for negotiations based upon realism rather than fantasy and puts the welfare and prosperity of the people above achieving a state of ideological ecstasy.

One can only hope at this late stage in a process which for two years has gone round in circles, that negotiation will lead to compromise which is acceptable to Europe and the majority in Parliament and  the country. Whether you call it a sensible Brexit, a soft hard Brexit or a hard soft Brexit is up to you.

There are two big lessons in this idiotic Brexit saga. It was wrong to call a referendum in the first place, when nobody had worked out what Brexit meant and, having made that mistake, it was madness not to specify that a two thirds majority was required in order to effect change. As it is the country is split almost evenly between two opposing camps which are fracturing the whole fabric of our normally benign society and its long history of coherent governance. England is more divided now than it has been at any time since the Reformation. Moreover a hard Brexit, which costs jobs, savings and homes will threaten the Union itself. This is a very dangerous moment in which vice-chairs of one political party have no meaningful part to play, either one way or the other.

Better. This is why. The hard line Brexiteers are in a state of shock as they see their dream crumble. They have only themselves to blame by putting ideology before planning, soundbites before programmes, dreams above reality and jingoism before judgement. They do not have a majority in the country, they do not have a majority in parliament and, crucially, they do not have a majority in the parliamentary Tory party.  The Tory party has the smallest membership of the three main political parties, fewer even than the Liberal Democrats. In a general election any time soon voters would turn away, as they always have, from supporting a party split asunder on the main issue of the day, and the Tories would go down to a defeat which would make their record loss in 1997 look a  triumph. Any attempt to ditch May and choose a new leader would trigger a general election. So May is safe.

Yesterday she fought a pitched battle for survival which lasted from the early hours to late, but she won convincingly. Boris, her protagonist in chief, tottered from the field a total wreck. The sinister Jacob Rees-Mogg withdrew to wait under the shade of the trees to see what happens next. All the key top offices of state are now held by Remainers, who accept the referendum outcome to withdraw from the EU, but will do it only on terms which do not destroy the economy of the UK, requiring a rebuild greater than even post 1945. In Parliament there is a majority for that approach, as there is in the country. Among all political party memberships right across the UK there is a majority for sensible Brexit, if Brexit happens. Except in the ageing rump membership of the Tory Party. And the brutal political fact is they no longer count.

So is May now set fair to sail through the next level of the Brexit withdrawal process?

Well that is the question. Since becoming Prime Minister she has become prone to self-harm, indecision and trying to please everybody. What happens next depends on whether she can make up her mind, fix on a course, abandon the hard Brexit wing of her party and lead the country with bold conviction. Can she do that?

You tell me.