The definition of Leave will be determined by the Remainers, expects Steve Beauchampe.
So it won’t be Boris who takes back control, then.
The talisman of the Leave campaign rather self-imploded, and following Boris Johnson’s somewhat eccentric and implausible EU article in last Monday’s Daily Telegraph, apparently exacerbated a few days later by his behaviour at a Conservative Party summer ball, it is understandable that Michael Gove terminated his support for his erstwhile colleague’s Conservative Party leadership bid and instead launched his own, in order to try and ensure that a leading member of the Leave campaign succeeded David Cameron as Prime Minister.
In announcing his bid, Gove set out a manifesto of sorts, not comprehensive but somewhat more detailed than his rival, Home Secretary Theresa May, whose pitch for support consisted of little more than saying: “I’m Theresa May and I think I’m the best person to be Prime Minister of this country.” Whilst those party ‘yes’ men and women who packed out her launch laughed dutifully at this remark, it told us much about the Conservative Party hierarchy’s attitude towards the crucial process of choosing who, as Prime Minister, will lead the UK through a period of potentially enormous economic, political and social upheaval.
What had begun the week as a thinly veiled ‘Stop Boris’ campaign transformed seamlessly into a plan to halt Gove. Within hours, Remain campaigner and Cameron loyalist Anna Soubry emerged to publicly suggest that Michael Gove abandon his leadership bid and allow support to coalesce around May, reasoning that in a time of great political uncertainty the nation needed a new Prime Minister now rather than endure the delay and inconvenience of a democratic election. There were suggestions that if the other candidates (Stephen Crabb, Liam Fox and Andrea Leadsom) also stood down May could be installed in No. 10 within days. waived through unchallenged by MPs and without the need for approval from the party’s 150,000 members, the vast majority of whom are thought to have voted Leave.
Those behind the envisaged coronation of Theresa May undoubtedly included Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne, but other senior party figures will have given support, resolutely determined that it will be the Remain side of the party, despite suffering a cataclysmic defeat in the referendum, that take control of negotiating the terms of Britain’s EU withdrawal.
Under Cameron’s leadership Conservative Party membership has collapsed, almost halving since 2006, with grass roots activists complaining of a growing disconnect between the constituencies and Central Office in London. That Cameron was so at variance with the majority of the membership over the EU epitomises this schism.
Although Theresa May’s leadership ambitions are long held and known, the manner in which her path to Downing Street is being eased demonstrates how swiftly and comprehensively political careers can rise and fall as well as how humiliating these last few months have been for both Cameron and Osborne. For it was only at last October’s annual party conference in Manchester, with Osborne viewed as Cameron’s heir apparent (Cameron having already announced his intention to quit as PM during the current Parliament) that Theresa May was played for a fool, victim of a very underhand trick.
As Home Secretary, May delivered a keynote speech, publicised in advance and unquestionably approved by No. 10, in which she showed (and not for the first time) hostile intent towards immigration and immigrants, confirming herself on the right of the party on that issue, as she is on many others. Cameron’s support was lukewarm, failing to convincingly defend her approach from the onslaught of press criticism that followed, and believed to have been encouraged by briefings from ‘unnamed sources’. When Cameron turned up to watch and then warmly applaud Osborne’s address the following day, May’s leadership ambitions appeared to have suffered significant, if not irreparable, damage. Yet now, as Cameron surveys the ruins of his legacy, Theresa May has become his anointed successor.
Frustratingly for the soon to be ex-PM and his acolytes both Gove, and later Leadsom, refused to countenance withdrawal from the party’s leadership race, forcing May to claim that she too opposed a coronation (ditto Crabb and Fox). So it appears that party members will get their say, deciding between the two candidates who secure the most support from amongst the 331 Conservative MPs. That currently looks as though it will be May and Leadsom, Gove struggling to overcome criticism of his ‘assassination’ of Boris Johnson. Theresa May still seems the likely victor, and thus Britain’s next Prime Minister (but will now at least be forced to provide some detail as to what abilities she could bring to the job and what direction she might take), but the manner of her accession does the Conservative Party hierarchy little credit.
