May must go – the country needs new leadership

“I stand ready to finish the job,” said Theresa May today launching the rapid-fire campaign to save her leadership. That she stands ready to finish the job is exactly the problem, and why she is facing a vote of confidence among Tory MPs today. Look where her trying to finish the job has landed the country.

The desperate Number 10 operation to prop up the Prime Minister is also based on that old chestnut that a change of leadership “would be a distraction.” This is one of those political phrases that is deployed as a holding line in a crisis when the leadership’s position is weak and its supporters cannot think of anything positive to say. “Stay away from those lifeboats, they are a distraction.”

The core difficulty for Number 10 is that rebel Tory MPs can ask what a change of leadership would be a distraction from. After all, what has the government got planned for the next six weeks? Not much. Theresa May cannot bring her plan to the Commons because it faces crushing defeat. She is asking the EU for cosmetic changes which they seem extremely unwilling to move on. The Number 10 plan seems to be to sit out the next six weeks, failing to prepare properly for the possibility of a no deal Brexit, and then hope that in late January something turns up and the deal somehow passes.

After yesterday’s humiliating tour of Europe, in which a British Prime Minister travelled the continent pleading for help in unravelling a deal which includes terms she should never have agreed to, it should be clear that the country is long overdue new leadership.

Why?

The Theresa May operation has clearly had it. This is not a Brexit or Remain point. Its an operational point. Within the machine are good people whose guiding principle has been to keep the show on the road. That show has now run out of road. The compromise deal, in which May did not even push back on with a right to quit on the backstop, although it was drafted and never presented, was supposed to swing the party and the country behind her. It hasn’t worked.

Someone fresh needs to be given the chance to deal with whatever is coming down the road in the next few months.

This is not an ERG-style appeal for a so-called pure Brexiteer. I’m a Brexiteer but I’ve clashed with many members of the ERG in the last few years. I think they’ve often been wildly unrealistic – goodness, they propped up May for a year when others (me included) were writing that Britain should really not try to do this difficult thing without a fully functioning Prime Minister.

This is the fundamental reason May should go.

Most of us have worked at one time or another for a company or a leader with problems. Happily, I don’t now but in the past I have. When an organisation is failing and doomed we all know the signs. An edict from the boss no longer quickens the pulse; meetings fail to come to clear decisions; key people resign; there is despair and infighting among the senior management which communicates itself to the troops; the clock ticks on and it gets worse by the day.

That is the situation now. Goodness, cabinet ministers who have sat through this know it has been the situation for 18 months since the general election.

None of the fundamentals are changed by a new person, not the Commons votes or the realities of the negotiations.

But a new person does change one big thing. In the early months they stand a chance – a chance – of re-energising, inspiring and leading. The pulse quickens again. Someone is in charge. They might be able to tap into expertise from outside politics, and even persuade major figures who have retired to come back to help in a national emergency. As it stands, the law says we’re leaving in just a few months so we had – in case a deal cannot pass and Remainers cannot assemble a national government minus Jeremy Corbyn – better get ready.

Theresa May has gone past the time when she might have pivoted to a new approach. She has failed to prepare for no deal; she has negotiated a bad deal; and her premiership is done for.

Another thought. Looking at the broad disposition of the Tory party in parliament in the event of a contest it seems perfectly plausible that the hardest Brexiteers may well find themselves eliminated by their colleagues. Anyone with a lower total in the final two will find themselves under immense pressure to stand aside and not take this to a membership ballot.

Even if it gets there, a worried Tory tribe is not guaranteed to choose a hardline Brexiteer, or a hardline Brexiteer will need to reach out to win. Tories will choose the person who looks a PM for a crisis. As I say, I suspect any leadership race will be quicker than the membership vote requires. The country is watching and the Tories need to get a move on.