Dancing on thin ice: May waltzes on to stage and warns 'Brexit could still be reversed'

Theresa May made a bizarre start to her crucial Conservative conference speech, dancing on to the stage before trying to unite Tories behind her under-fire Brexit Chequers plans.

In one of the most important speeches of her political career, the Prime Minister warned Brexit could be reversed if a fractured Tory party doesn’t support her position, using her speech to declare that Britain’s future is full of promise after it leaves the EU.

Warning against growing demands for a second referendum, she said: ‘They call it the peoples’ vote. But we had a people’s vote, and the people chose to leave.’

Urging Conservatives to come together, she added: ‘We risk ending up with no Brexit at all’.

Minutes before she started speaking, Tory MP James Duddridge tried to torpedo her rallying cry, writing a letter of no confidence to the chairman of the Conservative 1922 Committee calling for her to go: ‘We need a strong leader and we haven’t got that at the moment’, he writes.

‘I am normally a loyalist, served in the Whip’s Office for nearly five years and have never voted against the government. However, there comes a point that blind loyalty is not the right way forward.

‘We need a strong leader, someone who believes in Brexit and someone to deliver what the electorate voted for. The Prime Minister seems incapable of doing this.’

Spring in her step

The PM started the speech in a unorthodox manner, dancing on to the stage to the tune of Abba’s Dancing Queen in an obvious nod to the videos of her jigging in Africa that went viral.

Defending her Chequers plan, she warned that if the Tory party didn’t unite behind her position, Brexit could be reversed.

She said Britain wasn’t afraid of leaving with no deal if it had to (a comment which drew significant applause), but she said we ‘need to be honest about it’.

And she acknowledged tariffs at the border would be bad for the UK and the EU, but that British ingenuity would still enable Britain to succeed in the future.

However, she said, the EU was offering either a deal that would keep Britain in the EU in all but name or one that carves off Northern Ireland, effectively leaving it in the Customs Union.

She said: ‘We will never accept either of those choices’… We will not betray the results of the referendum and we will never break up our country.”

The speech was designed to galvanise support for her Chequers plan – which the EU has already dismissed out of hand.

And she added: ‘I passionately believe that our best days lie ahead of us and that our future is full of promise.

‘Don’t let anyone tell you we don’t have what it takes: we have everything we need to succeed.’

Addressing immigration she said a new system would prioritise the skills people have – not the country they came from.

And she used her speech to announce a new ‘cancer strategy’. After making reference to her goddaughter, who passed away recently from the disease, the Prime Minister committed – by 2028 – to keeping 55,000 more people alive five years after their diagnosis than today.

Attack on Corbyn

She also tried to invoke a sense of patriotism as she made a direct appeal to mainstream Labour voters disillusioned by Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing agenda.

‘Millions of people who have never supported our party in the past are appalled by what Jeremy Corbyn has done to Labour’, she said.

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‘They want to support a party that is decent, moderate and patriotic. One that puts the national interest first. Delivers on the issues they care about. And is comfortable with modern Britain in all its diversity.’

The PM borrowed the Labour leader’s ‘For the many, not the few’ slogan as she declared that Conservatives are ‘a party not for the few, not even for the many, but for everyone who is willing to work hard and do their best’.

And she attempted to win over ‘blue collar’ Tories with by continuing the fuel duty freeze, saying she will carry the policy into its ninth year as it is vital for ‘hard-working families’ – not just for their pockets, but for their quality of life.

‘Because for millions of people, their car is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.’

Boris backlash

Mrs May took to the stage less than 24 hours after 1,500 delegates gave a thunderous standing ovation to Boris Johnson as he branded her Brexit plans a ‘constitutional outrage’ that would humiliate Britain.

Mr Johnson’s demand for the PM to ‘chuck Chequers’ has echoed around the corridors and fringe meetings at a gathering riven by profound differences over the best approach to Britain’s EU withdrawal.

But he stopped well short of a direct challenge to her leadership, urging Tories to ‘back (her) in the best way possible’, by encouraging her to ditch the plan agreed at her country residence and return to her earlier hard Brexit blueprint.

Mrs May said she was ‘cross’ with her former foreign secretary, accusing him of being ready to ‘tear up’ her guarantee to the people of Northern Ireland that there would be no customs border down the Irish Sea.

The crucial address comes one year since her catastrophic conference speech in Manchester, where she suffered a stage invasion by a comedian, a persistent cough and a collapsing backdrop.

The calamitous performance had led to speculation over how long she could last as Conservative leader.