The moment that shames Theresa May

I’ve been surprisingly kind about Theresa May in many of the articles I’ve written here and elsewhere. Surprising, because I never thought much of her as a politician or a person before the spring of 2017.

Politically, I found her approach to immigration while Home Secretary to be dreadful and borderline dishonest. That continued seamlessly into her handling of Brexit in 2016, when she made the biggest policy decision of the era – to leave the single market – solely because of the way it related to immigration.

Personally, well, like other Lobby correspondents of a similar vintage I can attest that lunch with Theresa May is like crossing a desert at night: cold, dry, shedding no light and seemingly endless.

But after the 2017 election, I thought May did OK. The deal she eventually struck with the EU was, under the circumstances, a decent one. Britain, and the Union, would be in a happier position today if MPs had passed the thing.