How Theresa May’s exit compares with other difficult departures from No 10

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/26/humiliating-resignations-of-uk-prime-ministers

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Robert Peel

Both Brexit camps claim Sir Robert Peel, the Tory moderniser whose 1846 resignation crisis most resembles May’s. But he had succeeded where she failed. Determined to cut food prices for industrial workers, Peel pushed through repeal of protectionist Corn Laws with opposition help. In retaliation, rightwing enemies defeated his Irish Coercion bill. Peel resisted Queen Victoria’s appeal to stay, but grateful crowds cheered him as he walked to the Commons to resign. He slipped out by a side door, but was spotted and cheered home. Divided Tories lost office for 20 years.

Ramsay MacDonald

After splitting his Labour government over the economic crisis of 1931, Ramsay MacDonald led the Tory-dominated national government, in fast-declining health, so bad that soon “nobody knew what the prime minister was going to say and, when he did say it, nobody understood”. By 1935, aged 70, he was still denying more than “loss of memory”, but finally agreed to hand over to Stanley Baldwin after George V’s silver jubilee in May. He kept a token cabinet post and died in 1937 on a recuperative cruise.

Neville Chamberlain

Enthusiastic crowds greeted Neville Chamberlain in 1938 when he brought home Hitler’s “peace with honour” promises from Munich. By May 1940, feeble war leadership fuelled Tory defections that slashed his Commons majority from more than 200 to 81. Realising survival was hopeless, he tried to engineer fellow-appeaser Lord Halifax’s succession. But, as German troops poured into Belgium and Holland on 10 May, Labour insisted Winston Churchill lead a war coalition. No crowds watched Chamberlain’s car leave No 10 in the dark. Six months later he died from cancer.

Anthony Eden

Theresa May’s chief postwar competitor for Most Humiliating Exit from No 10 is Sir Anthony Eden who was forced to abandon the duplicitousAnglo-French invasion of Suez in November 1956 under UN/US pressure. Some ministers resigned, others plotted. Haggard and ill, Eden cancelled all engagements, then enraged critics by convalescing at Goldeneye, Bond author, Ian Fleming’s Jamaica retreat. He came back in December to lie to the Commons about Suez. On medical advice he resigned on 10 January, the succession stitched up for Harold Macmillan, the US candidate. The Edens took a sea voyage to New Zealand (not via Suez), their onboarddrinks served by a young steward called John Prescott. Eden lived another 20 years.

Margaret Thatcher

Wounded by Sir Geoffrey Howe’s cabinet resignation speech over Europe, in November 1990 Margaret Thatcher failed to rally a decisive majority of MPs against Michael Heseltine’s challenge. She was persuaded to withdraw only when (male) allies abandoned her. After a fighting speech to defeat Labour’s no-confidence motion, she stayed another week while John Major (whom she backed) beat Douglas Hurd for her job. As the Iron Lady’s car swept out of Downing St for the last time tears filled her eyes.

Gordon Brown

In May 2010, Gordon Brown was rejected by voters. But the manner of the dour introvert’s departure from Downing St surprised critics by its touching pride in the family he had shielded from media intrusion. Being PM was only the “second most important” job in his life, he insisted, despite his frantic efforts to seal a Lib-Lab coalition. Brown and his wife, Sarah, then left hand in hand with sons, John, 6, and Fraser, 3.

David Cameron

In gambling disastrously on his 2016 Brexit referendum to resolve the 40-year Tory war on Europe, Cameron had promised to implement the verdict. But within hours of his 52:48% defeat he appeared outside No 10 with his wife, Samantha, to announce it would “not be right for me to be the captain” of Brexit. He then reprised Brown’s family photo-op. With May’s walk-over win, Cameron formally resigned after a last PMQs (and a standing ovation) on 13 July. In September he quit as an MP and bought a caravan in which to write his memoirs.