Was Theresa May’s big Brexit speech simply a string of ‘phrases, generalisations and platitudes’? That’s the claim from Michael Heseltine over the weekend. The Conservative peer made the Observer front page with an attack that’s said to break the Tories’ short-lived Brexit unity. He says May’s pitch on Friday fell flat as it only ‘set out the cherries that Britain wants to pick’ and complains that rightwing Tory MPs held ‘a knife to her throat’.
But if anything, Heseltine’s lone criticism highlights the Tories’ newfound unity over Brexit. If you’d told Theresa May this time last week that the most prominent Tory to criticise her plans after her speech would be Heseltine – a man she previously sacked over Brexit – I doubt she would have believed you. Given that the Tory peer has suggested he’d prefer a Corbyn government to Brexit, it’s hard to see what (other than ‘Brexit is cancelled’) May could have said to win him round.
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