Theresa May must fight for right to lead Conservative Party — and sort out a Brexit position the Cabinet can agree on
The lack of clarity in the Government is seeing ministers keep intervening and trying to push it this way or that
REMARKABLY, the Cabinet has never had a proper discussion about the really big Brexit question: What should the final deal with the EU look like?
This is frustrating Cabinet ministers, breeding distrust and contributing to the current breakdown of discipline within the Government.
“The million-dollar question is the trade-off between regulatory compliance and market access and we haven’t had that discussion yet,” laments one senior Cabinet minister.
The Government is split between those who are prepared to shadow EU regulations to maintain maximum market access and the Brexiteers who would accept making trade with the EU being less smooth than it is now so this country is free to become more globally competitive.
This lack of clarity within the Government is storing up problems. As the policy is not decided, ministers keep intervening, trying to push it this way or that. As one Secretary of State points out, “It is the lack of firmness” that is leading to people behaving as they are.
It is also creating suspicion that it is all being stitched up behind closed doors. One Tory warns that “everyone is paranoid, everyone thinks they are being shut out”.
It was this feeling that led to Boris Johnson going public with his concerns ahead of Theresa May’s Florence speech. The lack of Cabinet discussion is leading both sides to believe the worst of each other.
After this week’s Cabinet meeting where Michael Gove, Chris Grayling and Boris Johnson pushed for weekly updates on “no deal” planning, one Cabinet minister asked me if this trio’s real aim was to see the talks collapse.
While Leave-supporting Cabinet ministers fear that Philip Hammond does not want to prepare for “no deal”, as he wants to make sure the UK has to take whatever deal the EU offers.
The next problem is that the talks between the UK and the EU are likely to finally move on to trade in December.
When they do, the UK can’t afford to waste any time. It needs to know its position well in advance of this part of the negotiation starting.
It would be a disaster if the UK went into trade talks with the EU unsure of what it wanted. Brussels’ negotiators would ruthlessly exploit this uncertainty.
So what is the way out of this impasse?
Well, Theresa May should invite the whole Cabinet to Chequers. She should tell them to arrive on Friday night and that they won’t be leaving until they have come to a collective decision on what the policy should be.
She should end the meeting by saying that anyone who disagrees with what’s been decided is free to leave the Government. But everyone who stays must support the policy in public AND private.
Resolving these differences won’t be easy. As one minister puts it: “Are you ever going to get Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson to agree on how to leave the EU?” But Mrs May has to try.
For the alternative is more division and drift.
The Tories are in a mess politically right now. As even one loyalist member of the Cabinet concedes: “We do have to get our act together.”
The first step towards doing that is sorting out a Brexit position that everyone in the Cabinet has bought into.
THERESA MAY will have the big house builders in to Downing Street next week. She’ll push them to get more homes built.
But the situation requires more urgency than this.
What is needed is for the Government to grant itself planning permission to build houses on the land it owns — then commission these house builders to build huge numbers of homes.
The time for half measures on housing has passed.
The Government hasn’t got a moment to waste if it is going to turn around the fall in home ownership before the next election.
If it can’t do that, then Britain will likely end up with a Corbyn government.
- James Forsyth is political editor of The Spectator
Home office priorities
THE Home Office has a lot on its plate, including designing a new immigration system.
But it has already introduced one change – gender-neutral toilets.
I’m told that these are just the toilets that were there before being re-badged.
But it does suggest that civil servants over there might be spending too much time sweating over the small stuff, rather than concentrating on the big issues that most concern the public.
Time to ditch the bed blockers
THERESA MAY has a major reshuffle problem.
There is now a significant faction in her party who want her Chancellor sacked and another group who want the Foreign Secretary gone.
But it is hard to imagine how a Prime Minister, especially one who has just lost her parliamentary majority in an early election that she called, could sack both the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary.
As one minister warns: “If they both had to go, she’d have to go.”
Yet if Mrs May carried out a reshuffle now and left them both in place, too many people would say this was proof that she was too weak to move them. If she moved one and not the other, she would upset the Brexit balance of the Government.
So the reshuffle is likely to be delayed.
It is tempting to see the anger with Philip Hammond as all being about Brexit. It is not quite that simple, though.
There is irritation in government that Hammond is blocking action on all sorts of things. One Remain-voting Cabinet minister huffs that Hammond “needs a job that requires no emotional intelligence”.
For a senior politician, the Chancellor has an alarming ability to say the wrong thing. Look at him calling the EU “the enemy”, which he had to row back on within minutes of saying it.
And it isn’t just Leavers in government who worry that Hammond is being too negative about Brexit.
One influential figure, who backed Remain, tells me: “What’s damaging the Government overall is this constant Eeyore thing that this could be very bad.” Another problem for Mrs May is that, as one Minister puts it: “Some of the weakest performers are her closest allies.”
If she leaves them in place, or promotes them, she will invite accusations that she is running her own chumocracy.
This would be particularly embarrassing for her given she made a big deal of her meritocratic approach when first appointing her Cabinet.
But Mrs May does need to do a reshuffle before Christmas. She not only needs to freshen up her top team but also get rid of “bed blocking” ministers of state to make way for the most talented members of the 2015 intake.
There is little point in keeping ministers of state in place who’ll never make Cabinet.
If they are not moving up, they should be moving out.
Treasury's planned tax hike
THE word in Whitehall is that the Treasury is casting round for stealth taxes as it looks for ways to raise money in next month’s Budget.
But going down this route would be a mistake.
Tax rises are unpopular enough.
Looking like you are trying to do them on the sly just compounds the problem.
