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| Our panel’s verdict on Theresa May’s Brexit speech | Our panel’s verdict on Theresa May’s Brexit speech |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Matthew d’Ancona: This address had a Thatcheresque sting in its tail | Matthew d’Ancona: This address had a Thatcheresque sting in its tail |
| So the lady’s not for turning. Well, we knew that, didn’t we? Brexit means Brexit, no “partial membership”, no “half-in, half-out”. This was the section of Theresa May’s speech most heavily briefed in advance – but still gloriously welcome to the hard Brexiteers when she finally uttered the words like an ideological incantation. | So the lady’s not for turning. Well, we knew that, didn’t we? Brexit means Brexit, no “partial membership”, no “half-in, half-out”. This was the section of Theresa May’s speech most heavily briefed in advance – but still gloriously welcome to the hard Brexiteers when she finally uttered the words like an ideological incantation. |
| Though delivered as an encomium to the comity of nations, this address also had a Thatcheresque sting in its tail. The prime minister would not, she said, accept, a “punitive deal” with the EU. Indeed, the pursuit of such a strategy would be an act of “calamitous self-harm” by the remaining 27 member states. | Though delivered as an encomium to the comity of nations, this address also had a Thatcheresque sting in its tail. The prime minister would not, she said, accept, a “punitive deal” with the EU. Indeed, the pursuit of such a strategy would be an act of “calamitous self-harm” by the remaining 27 member states. |
| In such circumstances, they would lose access to crucial supply chains, to the City, and to the goodwill of Britain – which might, in retaliation, recast itself as an offshore tax haven. This was the prime minister as Don Corleone, warning the assembled diplomats of the continent that they were about to be made an offer they couldn’t refuse. | In such circumstances, they would lose access to crucial supply chains, to the City, and to the goodwill of Britain – which might, in retaliation, recast itself as an offshore tax haven. This was the prime minister as Don Corleone, warning the assembled diplomats of the continent that they were about to be made an offer they couldn’t refuse. |
| May made her statement with poise, a sign of her under-acknowledged growth in the role of prime minister. But her precision-tooled rhetoric could not disguise the difficulty of what lies ahead. She wants both to leave – fully, unambiguously – and then to negotiate selective agreements with specific EU institutions: the “greatest possible access” to the single market, a new relationship with the customs union, cooperation over law and order, defence, intelligence. She ruled out paying “huge sums” to Brussels for the privilege – but not, please note, an “appropriate” contribution. | May made her statement with poise, a sign of her under-acknowledged growth in the role of prime minister. But her precision-tooled rhetoric could not disguise the difficulty of what lies ahead. She wants both to leave – fully, unambiguously – and then to negotiate selective agreements with specific EU institutions: the “greatest possible access” to the single market, a new relationship with the customs union, cooperation over law and order, defence, intelligence. She ruled out paying “huge sums” to Brussels for the privilege – but not, please note, an “appropriate” contribution. |
| As I wrote yesterday, Brexit is the easy bit. The prime minister must also steer the deal through parliament, which, quite rightly, will be given a vote on its content. In her negotiation with Brussels, she must prevent the “phased process of implementation” getting lost in “political purgatory”. | As I wrote yesterday, Brexit is the easy bit. The prime minister must also steer the deal through parliament, which, quite rightly, will be given a vote on its content. In her negotiation with Brussels, she must prevent the “phased process of implementation” getting lost in “political purgatory”. |
| That work alone will dominate her premiership. Today, she maintained the poker face that is her trademark. The other 27 players must now decide how to play their hands. | That work alone will dominate her premiership. Today, she maintained the poker face that is her trademark. The other 27 players must now decide how to play their hands. |
| Polly Toynbee: This looks like war | Polly Toynbee: This looks like war |
| Call it clean, call it hard, but May’s red, white and blue Brexit threatens epic self-harm – out of the single market, out of the customs union, no half-in, half-out. Immigration she has put above all else, regardless of livelihoods and despite polls showing that Brexit voters would not want border control to cost them dearly. | Call it clean, call it hard, but May’s red, white and blue Brexit threatens epic self-harm – out of the single market, out of the customs union, no half-in, half-out. Immigration she has put above all else, regardless of livelihoods and despite polls showing that Brexit voters would not want border control to cost them dearly. |
| Enoch Powell from the grave has finally won – Brexiteer leaders are his direct inheritors. Where other Conservative leaders always saw off their little-Englander, closed-border right flank, she is the first to cave in. | Enoch Powell from the grave has finally won – Brexiteer leaders are his direct inheritors. Where other Conservative leaders always saw off their little-Englander, closed-border right flank, she is the first to cave in. |
| How she has sugared that hard truth in fantasy visions of her “stronger, fairer, more global Britain”, as if this “great global trading nation” with its gigantic trade deficit still ruled the imperial waves. Cake-and-eat-it delusions infused all she said: Irish border? We’ll sort it, God knows how. Get all the trade we want for every key sector – no problem, and no contributions either. They need us more than we need them, she boasts. If they try punishment, here’s her fist – a cut-throat tax haven race to the bottom, “our freedom to set a competitive tax rate”. How disgraceful too to use our intelligence capability as a deeply damaging added threat. | How she has sugared that hard truth in fantasy visions of her “stronger, fairer, more global Britain”, as if this “great global trading nation” with its gigantic trade deficit still ruled the imperial waves. Cake-and-eat-it delusions infused all she said: Irish border? We’ll sort it, God knows how. Get all the trade we want for every key sector – no problem, and no contributions either. They need us more than we need them, she boasts. If they try punishment, here’s her fist – a cut-throat tax haven race to the bottom, “our freedom to set a competitive tax rate”. How disgraceful too to use our intelligence capability as a deeply damaging added threat. |
| More from the realms of fantasy: time and again she claimed the country was united or coming together, at least, when it has never been more sorely split, emotionally, politically, regionally, generationally. Nor was there any comfort for EU nationals here and thus none for UK nationals over there. Had she meant her words of keeping the partnership with old EU allies, that one small gesture of true friendship would have opened her negotiations in a genuine spirit of amity. Instead, this looks like war. | More from the realms of fantasy: time and again she claimed the country was united or coming together, at least, when it has never been more sorely split, emotionally, politically, regionally, generationally. Nor was there any comfort for EU nationals here and thus none for UK nationals over there. Had she meant her words of keeping the partnership with old EU allies, that one small gesture of true friendship would have opened her negotiations in a genuine spirit of amity. Instead, this looks like war. |
| Giles Fraser: The left must not keep moping about the downsides | Giles Fraser: The left must not keep moping about the downsides |
| I wonder if the symbolism was deliberate. For it was at Lancaster House that Margaret Thatcher delivered her “Europe open for business” speech in April 1988, extolling the virtues of the single market. Thatcher was one of the principal architects of this idea and her vision of Europe was that of a free trade zone where business could go on uninterrupted by the barriers of the nation state. Here, the free activity of business would not be interfered with by governments, whatever their elected mandate. | |
| Today, May appeared at Lancaster House to rightly insist on our tradition of parliamentary sovereignty – which is why parliament will get the final say on the Brexit deal – but also to undo Thatcher’s disastrous single market model. The EU has become little more than a club for big business, which is why it’s over at the CBI and at Davos that they will be mourning Britain’s lack of membership the most. | Today, May appeared at Lancaster House to rightly insist on our tradition of parliamentary sovereignty – which is why parliament will get the final say on the Brexit deal – but also to undo Thatcher’s disastrous single market model. The EU has become little more than a club for big business, which is why it’s over at the CBI and at Davos that they will be mourning Britain’s lack of membership the most. |
| Yes, she made lots of warm and compensatory noises about free trade. But from now on we get to decide our trade rules in the House of Commons. Which is why, despite the obvious comparisons between them, May has become the first prime minister to escape from Thatcher’s dark shadow. | Yes, she made lots of warm and compensatory noises about free trade. But from now on we get to decide our trade rules in the House of Commons. Which is why, despite the obvious comparisons between them, May has become the first prime minister to escape from Thatcher’s dark shadow. |
| The task for the left is not to resist any of this, still less to hope it will fail so that they can bask in an “I told you so” glow, but rather to redouble its efforts to repatriate the best bits of European law, such as workers’ rights and environmental protection, through the power of our own sovereign House of Commons. In other words, not to keep moping on about the downsides of leaving the EU, but to help shape our new relationship and win an election. Because the whole point of Brexit was to insist on our own right to determine our own future. | The task for the left is not to resist any of this, still less to hope it will fail so that they can bask in an “I told you so” glow, but rather to redouble its efforts to repatriate the best bits of European law, such as workers’ rights and environmental protection, through the power of our own sovereign House of Commons. In other words, not to keep moping on about the downsides of leaving the EU, but to help shape our new relationship and win an election. Because the whole point of Brexit was to insist on our own right to determine our own future. |
| John Harris: Immigration is front and centre | John Harris: Immigration is front and centre |
| Twenty-nine years ago, the Berlin Wall was still intact, acid house was in full effect and Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister. In April 1988, she made a speech at Lancaster House that set out the glories of the European single market, seemingly the embodiment of her free-enterprise credo: “a single market without barriers – visible or invisible”, which would give UK businesses “direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world’s wealthiest and most prosperous people”. | Twenty-nine years ago, the Berlin Wall was still intact, acid house was in full effect and Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister. In April 1988, she made a speech at Lancaster House that set out the glories of the European single market, seemingly the embodiment of her free-enterprise credo: “a single market without barriers – visible or invisible”, which would give UK businesses “direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world’s wealthiest and most prosperous people”. |
| Well, goodbye to all that: it is one of the most remarkable turnarounds of recent history that we’re now on our way out, set only on “the greatest possible access”. The most vocal spokespeople for the 48% are understandably howling their pain. But in political terms at least, that move and the speech that announced it seemed straightforward and successful. | Well, goodbye to all that: it is one of the most remarkable turnarounds of recent history that we’re now on our way out, set only on “the greatest possible access”. The most vocal spokespeople for the 48% are understandably howling their pain. But in political terms at least, that move and the speech that announced it seemed straightforward and successful. |
| May is no longer open to the charge that her government has no plan. By way of playing to the populist politics of the moment, immigration is front and centre. Even if MPs will be faced with a choice between a deal and no deal at all and thus vote in large numbers for what the government has negotiated, parliament will get the final say on Brexit’s terms. That faint sound you can hear is Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party, struggling to find a response that will have any traction at all. | May is no longer open to the charge that her government has no plan. By way of playing to the populist politics of the moment, immigration is front and centre. Even if MPs will be faced with a choice between a deal and no deal at all and thus vote in large numbers for what the government has negotiated, parliament will get the final say on Brexit’s terms. That faint sound you can hear is Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party, struggling to find a response that will have any traction at all. |
| And yet, and yet. Within May’s speech was an attempt to tie together a huge array of political and economic items that may spectacularly fail. The idea that what 23 June represented was a vote for a Britain “even more global and internationalist, in action and spirit” is clearly laughable. It is no good banging on about a country open to overseas talent – and the glories of scientific and academic co-operation – when you are already moving towards cutting the numbers of EU students by over 30,000. Bromides about Scotland and Wales do not smooth over the fact that single market membership represents a huge red line for Nicola Sturgeon, and that the Union is once again creaking. | And yet, and yet. Within May’s speech was an attempt to tie together a huge array of political and economic items that may spectacularly fail. The idea that what 23 June represented was a vote for a Britain “even more global and internationalist, in action and spirit” is clearly laughable. It is no good banging on about a country open to overseas talent – and the glories of scientific and academic co-operation – when you are already moving towards cutting the numbers of EU students by over 30,000. Bromides about Scotland and Wales do not smooth over the fact that single market membership represents a huge red line for Nicola Sturgeon, and that the Union is once again creaking. |
| One other thing. This was effectively May’s last big moment of political control before article 50 is triggered, negotiations begin, and all that stuff about the best deal in the best of all possible worlds collides with what the EU wants. When that story takes flight, today – and its temporary political dividends – will feel like something from another age. | One other thing. This was effectively May’s last big moment of political control before article 50 is triggered, negotiations begin, and all that stuff about the best deal in the best of all possible worlds collides with what the EU wants. When that story takes flight, today – and its temporary political dividends – will feel like something from another age. |
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