It would all be different if a real Leaver were in charge, lamented the Brexit hardliner, Jacob Rees-Mogg as he launched his effort to topple Theresa May. This is a constant theme of the hardliners’ betrayal narrative. The prime minister was a non -beLeaver; a political mudblood.
In this narrative, a real Brexiter would have shown the gumption to get a good deal. We’ll never know, the Leavers wail, how things would have been with a true disciple in charge.
Except that actually we have a very good idea, because we have had two years to watch the hardline Brexiters and assess their political acumen. Their record is an uninterrupted litany of cowardice, incompetence and blame shifting. For all the bluster, they have blinked, bottled or botched it at every turn.
Even when last week they came to the belated realisation that Mrs May was going to let them down — something she could not have made more obvious if she’d plastered Westminster with signs proclaiming “I’m going to let you down” — even then they could not properly organise the defenestration they had been promising to gullible journalists each weekend for the past six months.
At the time of writing we still await the 48 signatures necessary to trigger a leadership contest. Even if the 48 promised by the Brexiters’ so-called master strategist Steve Baker are finally mustered, as they still may be, the rebels have lost face and momentum. As one Tory put it, “this is how Vote Leave would have looked without Dominic Cummings ”.
But the fabric of the Brexiters looked threadbare ever since the referendum victory, when they managed to lose the party leadership that was theirs for the taking by cutting off the legs of their undisputed popular champion. Many will share Michael Gove’s view that Boris Johnson was not up to the job, but his last-minute decision to run against him cost Leavers the leadership. Andrea Leadsom’s self-destruction completed their rout. Three shots; three misses.
Even then, Leavers like Mr Johnson and David Davis were given the chance to shape events as foreign and Brexit secretaries. Both were found absent even when at their post. Mrs May was able to bypass Mr Davis for a year and produce an entire strategy without consulting him. For 12 months his resistance was limited to grumbling to newspapers and threatening to quit. The longest short fuse in history. Only after an all-day cabinet meeting exposed his neutered status did Mr Davis make a stand, followed a few hours later by Mr Johnson, less heroically but more theatrically. Neither initiated a leadership challenge though it must have been obvious that Mrs May was not to be diverted. These are the hard men who would bring the commission to heel?
Mr Davis’ successor was Dominic Raab, a serious, thoughtful man touted as a future leader. He saw his predecessor cut out of the loop by Downing Street and vowed it would not happen to him. Yet he arrived at last week’s cabinet meeting to approve the deal knowing that Mrs May had gone behind his back adding lines he could not accept.
Rightly incensed, he could have walked out before the meeting, provoking the crisis before Mrs May could claim the deal had cleared cabinet. Perhaps he hoped his fellow Brexit ministers would back up his outrage. A mass walkout would probably have finished Mrs May, but she correctly judged their timber. Five of his six fellow Brexiters chose to stay put, planning pizza meetings and playing fantasy politics over the changes they will force on the treaty.
Mr Gove has declined the opportunity to become Mrs May’s third Brexit secretary, saying he would do it only if he could rewrite the deal. On being told he could not, he opted to stay on as environment secretary anyway. He calculates that bringing down Mrs May at this stage threatens the whole project. He may be right but such realism will hardly scare Michel Barnier into offering a “super Canada trade deal” in just three months.
Their final hope now rests with killing the deal in parliament and limping over the Brexit finish line to a no-deal exit. At this point, we are to believe, they will find the Dunkirk spirit they routinely invoke but rarely display to lead the nation through its consequential crisis.
Against such figures stands Mrs May, in a comparison that cannot fail to flatter. In truth she has negotiated lamentably, setting out red lines to which she could not adhere; agreeing early to an inescapable Irish backstop; downplaying services and treating the end of free movement of people as the only inviolate aspect of Brexit.
Yet a few minutes perusing the record of her critics is enough to know they lack the grit to do any better. Outmanoeuvred and outfought by Mrs May, are we really supposed to take seriously the notion that they could outplay the EU?
