Advertisement

Evening Standard comment: Who will block the PM’s route to a no-deal Brexit?; New hall hits high notes

A week may be a long time in politics but most political strategies last at least half a week. Not this government’s.

On Wednesday, after the shattering defeat of her Brexit deal, Theresa May launched her Plan B. She would reach out to other parties to find a way forward. A nightcap was offered to Vince Cable and Yvette Cooper was asked to see David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister.

Just four days later, the new plan came to an abrupt end.

Last night, in a call with her Cabinet, she told it she was abandoning cross-party talks — and said she was going back to her party to find that elusive majority.

She blamed the Labour leader for refusing to take part but it was Mrs May who sealed the fate of the talks when she said from the outset that she was not prepared to compromise on any of the key elements of her plan.

In short, she said: I’ll hear you but I won’t listen.

That’s the story of her premiership.

So we are back to Plan A — telling everyone there’s no alternative to the withdrawal agreement that Parliament so decisively rejected, while promising to find a way out of the Irish backstop that so inflamed hard Brexiteers and the DUP.

The latest wheeze, we’re told, is that she’s going to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement. That means changing an international agreement in a matter of weeks, and getting the consent of every signatory to it including Irish parties implacably opposed to Brexit and an Irish government that has showed no sign of shifting position for two years.

It is a desperate plan with no chance of success. Indeed, we predict it will have an ever shorter life than the cross-party talks.

It also confirms a pattern that we have suspected. Mrs May will never be the Prime Minister who forms a parliamentary majority at the expense of her party. She will always, when the chips are down, put short-term Conservative unity first above what the national situation demands.

That’s the story of her career as a Tory super-activist and the sad story of her premiership.

It leads to this critical conclusion: when the moment comes, as it shortly will, when she has to choose between a no-deal Brexit and no Brexit (by delaying to hold a second referendum), she is most likely to embrace the no-deal Brexit. That is the option least likely to rupture the Tory Party — which is why most leadership front-runners also indicate that they favour that choice.

This will all come as a shock to the civil service, which assumes no occupant of No 10 could make such a damaging choice.

It will force those in her Cabinet — starting with the Chancellor — who already fear this outcome, to decide whether to resign rather than take the country off a cliff with her.

It will put many moderate Tory MPs and peers in a quandary, as they have silently hoped that some compromise involving a permanent customs union would emerge and allow them to muddle through.

It will also, in time, force those who today will start to seize control of the parliamentary timetable, led on the Conservative side by Oliver Letwin, Nick Boles and Dominic Grieve, to decide what they ultimately want to do with their new-found power.

When confronted with the fork in the road between no-deal and no Brexit, Mrs May knows in her heart which path she will take. She will put party before country.

Will those who have thrown their lot in with her follow?

New hall hits high notes

The London Symphony Orchestra is getting rave reviews under the baton of its new music director, Sir Simon Rattle. But the Barbican Centre, where it plays, isn’t.

London is one of the music capitals of the world but it lacks even one large concert hall with decent acoustics. That’s why the LSO is right to want to build a better one.

Today we reveal a first look at plans for the new 2,000-seat concert hall set to open in the City of London in about four years’ time.

The Centre for Music will match the best new halls being built elsewhere in Europe — Paris, for instance, has opened three. There are those who say Brexit means London can no longer afford to build the best and reach out to the world.

We say the opposite: it’s never been more important. The LSO’s brilliant plans deserve all our support.