Why stubborn May survives

If Theresa May survives today’s vote of confidence – which looks likely with DUP support – then the big question is what will she do next. The Prime Minister has three days to go before having to present her Plan B to the House of Commons.

Until last night’s vote, No 10’s plan was for May to go back to Berlin or Brussels to plead with Europe’s power brokers to give her more meat to take to the Commons for a second-bite. Her RAF plane is said to be on stand-by.

That now looks unlikely for two reasons: the scale of her defeat was so catastrophic that tinkering with the Irish back-stop is hardly going to shift opinion while the response of EU leaders last night suggests they have nothing more to offer.

The PM knows this too, better than most. What we also know about May after two and a half years is that this vicar’s daughter is not a quitter: she has been crushed, humiliated, defeated on an epic scale and has now lost her authority.

But she’s also obdurate, obstinate and appears far from broken. From what we have seen of the PM’s leadership style so far, she is not going to give up now as her self-belief is nothing less than extraordinary. Quite simply, she doesn’t want to leave her job. So here’s a thought – could she resurrect herself from the ashes of last night’s defeat by becoming the champion of a no deal Brexit? To save herself, and her Conservative government, could she now be the one who does deliver on her early promise that ‘Brexit means Brexit?’

Remember that expression early on in May’s reign? Could she be the one to resurrect her own words spoken two years ago tomorrow on January 17 at Lancaster House when she first laid out her ambitions for what Brexit meant. Remember them: “ I want us to be a truly Global Britain – the best friend and neighbour to our European partners, but a country that reaches beyond the borders of Europe too.”

“A country that goes out into the world to build relationships with old friends and new allies alike. I want Britain to be what we have the potential, talent and ambition to be. A great, global trading nation that is respected around the world and strong, confident and united at home.”

Some eight months later May made another big speech in Florence, once again setting out what was to have been her big vision for the future of Britain: “The strength of feeling that the British people have about this need for control and the direct accountability of their politicians is one reason why, throughout its membership, the United Kingdom has never totally felt at home being in the European Union.”

“And perhaps because of our history and geography, the European Union never felt to us like an integral part of our national story in the way it does to so many elsewhere in Europe.”

Remember those words ? They were strong, confident, and honest. Where did that Prime Minister go? The one that some observers said reminded them of Elizabeth the 1st who, when speaking to her troops ahead of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, said: “ I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England too.”

She was lost a long time ago, well before the Irish backstop was even a issue and before the combined claws of the civil service and the EU apparatchik got her to change her attitude; to be happy with a fudge for which she will never be forgiven by many in her party.

But there’s something else incredibly important to remember about Theresa May’s make-up, about what sustains her, and why I think she’s not over yet. She has wanted to be Prime Minister since the age of 12, and was even said to have been furious that Margaret Thatcher beat her to being the first female PM. Who knows if that sentiment is true, but the fact is that the anecdote sticks to her and has never been refuted.

If in any doubt about her drive, just think of her response to the general election defeat: yes, there were tears and red-eyes for a few days after, but she soon came bouncing back only a few weeks later.

The fact that she has suffered the biggest parliamentary defeat that any Conservative leader has ever endured does not appear to have pricked her at all very much. What’s bizarre is that the more opprobrium and abuse there is thrown at her, the more she appears to relish the fight.

Psychologists have described her as ‘resilient’, which is probably being kind. Others would say her behaviour has been almost psychopathic in its stubbornness and sly in her inability to share her views with others.

And that’s been the weakness of her leadership, and the reason behind last night’s humiliating defeat. Great leaders are flexible, they change their mind and listen to others. But she doesn’t listen and does not like collaborating with others: ruling out too early other options like staying in the EEA or trying to bring her own party along with her earlier on in EU negotiations.

Unlike almost all politicians, she does not feel the need to be loved or adored by her peers or indeed, the wider public. As her biographer, Rosa Prince, has noted, the Prime Minister is indifferent to popularity, had few friends at school and has never cultivated a wide social circle other than a few friends from her Oxford days.

That is, apart from her husband, Philip May, who is as one wag once said, the most important Philip in the Cabinet. He’s her muse, her confidant and perhaps more importantly, her most important political strategist. And even more important to May after the departure of her closest advisers, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy.

There’s another intriguing side to the Prime Minister, despite being the supposedly do-gooder daughter of a ‘high church’ Anglican vicar. She does revenge, and she does it big time and she can be duplicitous. Just think of the way she dispensed with most of the Cameroons in the Cabinet after becoming PM and her humiliating treatment of George Osborne who she so ceremoniously sacked, letting it be known she thought he was ‘toxic’.

And don’t forget how patient she was: for six years she sat around David Cameron’s Cabinet table enduring, what she considered childish behaviour from her fellow ministers and what she saw as constant put-downs from ministers like Osborne.

May has been called a sphinx without a riddle for good reason: that what you see is what you get and that there is no mystery. Her oxygen is power and the last thing she will want to do now is quit. Unless the DUP demand May’s head in return for supporting the government in today’s vote, she may well survive. And take the UK out of the EU with a No Deal. This lady is for turning.