The prime minister is finished. I really cannot see how she can survive more than a few days. The article by Tim Shipman in The Sunday Times (HERE) is surely the end of the line for Mrs May. It paints a picture of a beleaguered Theresa May in a bunker and increasingly being distanced from reality.
It begins with last Tuesday's cabinet meeting where they discussed options for the length of the delay with ministers on both sides of the short v long argument.
"Ministers were quick to brief afterwards that May had seemed to have no personal views and sat like a 'nodding dog' as others spoke. In fact she had given a clear direction of travel that suggested her priority was to keep up pressure on Brexiteers who feared a long extension".
"She said:'A short extension would be challenging given the risk of no deal. It is important that while the cabinet does support a short extension, we cannot do anything which provides any incentive not to vote for the deal.' She agreed to write to party members outlining why no deal was so difficult".
As usual with her, within 24 hours she had abandoned that position in a way that may have made her premiership implode according to Shipman. She was late for her own speech on Wednesday night because she had been negotiating with 20 Eurosceptics, those who had reluctantly switched to backing her Brexit deal on MV2. She found that only a handful were still prepared to back her and two, Philip Davies and Ben Bradley, called for her to resign. No wonder the speech went badly!
Listen to this:
"Two weeks earlier the entire whips’ office had been to see her to listen to a pitch on her plans for domestic agenda. Paul Maynard, one of the senior whips who voted leave, said: “I’ve heard enough. When I was told that we would have to come over and talk to you I began to cry. I said, ‘I don’t want to go over and talk to that woman any more. She’s betrayed Brexit, destroying our party. I want her gone.’
"May replied: 'I’m sorry you feel that way . . .'
"Maynard then said he hadn’t finished and “continued to give her both barrels”, a source said. One of those present said: 'I’ve never seen anything like it. She has lost all authority in the party and is totally deluded about her ability to govern.'
"When his colleagues backed up Maynard, one observer said: 'It was like Murder on the Orient Express', in which each character plunges in the knife".
Cabinet ministers fear a Chilcot style public enquiry on Brexit will blame them if we leave without a deal:
"Greg Clark, the business secretary, expressed concern that ministers would face censure for allowing no deal to go ahead knowing what they did of the problems. He asked Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, 'whether allowing no deal would be breaking the ministerial code because we know how bad it might be'.
"Another minister said: 'We’re sitting there contemplating the length of queues and the size of the riots and the shortages of medicines and when we might deploy the army and the prime minister has just put no deal back on the table. There was visceral anger.'
"These ministers are also concerned that a future public inquiry into the government’s stewardship of Brexit could find that they put the interests of the party before those of the country. One source who has read last week’s cabinet minutes said: 'They quote the prime minister saying not delivering Brexit ‘would be damaging to the Conservative Party’. There are references to the party needing to elect councillors in the local elections. If this all goes wrong it will be quite damning actually.' "
She has been consistent in one thing only and that is putting the interests of the Tory party above all else right from the minute she entered Downing Street as PM. But figures close to her are worried about the strain she is under:
"Insiders say the prime minister was reduced to tears by her humiliation in the second meaningful vote and that a doctor was called to tend to her when she lost her voice in the midst of the crisis.
"The House of Commons authorities were so concerned about her wellbeing that — three sources have told The Sunday Times — the serjeant at arms took action.
“ 'They were so worried about her collapsing that they put a protocol plan in place. They had a plan if she fainted to get her out of there.' One cabinet minister was overheard before Christmas criticising May’s 'lack of stamina' and blaming her ill health for her inability to govern".
Nobody it seems has any faith in her: The Chief whip, Julian Smith is apparently at war with her chief of staff Gavin Barwell and Robbie Gibb her communications director.
"Those around her in Downing Street have lost faith in her ability to turn the situation around. 'It’s pretty dysfunctional in there,' said one Tory. 'I got a text from someone in No 10 last week just saying: ‘Let’s face it, it’s all f*****.’"
She is trying to keep a party together that has at least three and possibly more groups. The ERG seems to operate as a party within a party while the 'pizza group' is an informal collection of ministers, all keen to leave with no deal despite dire warnings that they are privy to, who meet at Andrea Leadsom's place to plot against the PM.
If she goes this week, as some are speculating that she will, according to the front page of the Sunday Times (and here I must warn you not to put anything in your mouth in case you choke with laughter) the plan is install her de facto deputy David Lidington:
"A cabinet source said: 'David's job would be to secure an extension with the EU, find a consensus for a new Brexit policy and then arrange an orderly transition to a new leader.'"
The first task has been done already and the last two are just impossible. May isn't the only deluded one in cabinet then.
