A few weeks ago, Theresa May seemed surprisingly stable as Tory leader, given the mess of the snap election. Her cabinet had finally stopped squabbling about Brexit and Conservative backbenchers were largely backing her to continue. But on the eve of party conference, things don’t look so great.
Firstly, the Cabinet unity has disappeared again. The Prime Minister’s Florence speech opened up a war of bids for her attention from Brexiteers and Brexitsceptics alike, all of whom believed that the Prime Minister is so malleable on policy that she just needs to hear the same thing over and over again before she believes it. When her speech didn’t answer big questions on the UK’s long-term relationship with the European Union, the fighting continued because ministers, including Boris Johnson, felt they still had a case to make for their vision of Brexit.
May might have been tempted to discipline Johnson, who is continuing to cause trouble by laying down yet more red lines on Brexit in today’s
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