In early September as MPs returned to Westminster I spoke to a former cabinet minister about the mood in the Conservative Party. “We are in a state of civil war – it was like coming back in 1640,” he said. His comparison was with the opening of the Long Parliament in November that year, when England was sliding towards conflict. He proceeded to describe Theresa May as “a very, very weak leader, who isn’t a leader at all”. But then came the paradox: “She has got to stay until Brexit is over. Were she to go, she would plunge the country into an absolute crisis. If she wants to go, we’ll have to manacle her to the gates of N0 10.”
May is useless, but she must see this through: a majority of Conservative MPs still assent to this rather unsatisfactory proposition, for if she is so useless, it is curious to entrust her with such a difficult and important task. But the danger of forcing a leadership contest seems to them even greater, because it could produce such a crisis of confidence in the ability of the Conservatives to govern that a general election becomes unavoidable. And as the former minister explained, “None of us want a general election, preferably ever and certainly not for the next four years.”
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