Opinion

Alex Kane: Thanks to Theresa May's weakness, UK is now in the worst possible Brexit position

Theresa May's fragile administration depends on the support of the 10 DUP MPs
Theresa May's fragile administration depends on the support of the 10 DUP MPs Theresa May's fragile administration depends on the support of the 10 DUP MPs

I wonder if there's anyone who would die in a ditch for Theresa May? I only ask because it seems pretty clear that even she wouldn't die in a ditch for her beliefs; primarily because she doesn't have any.

She became prime minister when the congenitally useless David Cameron ran away (having failed to tell the Civil Service to prepare for a possible victory by Leave); and because the possible contenders from the genuinely pro-Brexit side were so clinically bonkers or too weighted down with daggers in the back from their former friends they couldn't mount a serious challenge.

Her spectacular rise from low-profile, wheel-turning ministerial hamster, to her present status as our best known mediocrity was also helped by the fact that none of the genuine Remainers were stupid enough to want a job that required them to stand between a fan and a mountain of excrement. The Brexit victory needed a leader possessed of cunning, clarity and utter, utter ruthlessness to see it through. But we ended up with the political equivalent of Mr Bean - Mrs Has Been.

On Tuesday evening she squeezed a dozen or so Remainers (threatening to rebel) into her Commons office and somehow persuaded them that if they agreed not to support an amendment for Parliament to have a final vote on a Brexit deal, she would still ensure that there would be a final vote further down the line (although she doesn't seem to have explained how she would manage that). How stupid were they? I mean, how stupid must you be to be outmanoeuvred by a prime minister who has the electoral substance of a blancmange and the natural authority of a clapped-out speak-your-weight machine that still talks in pounds and ounces? Non-Conservative Remainers like to mock the party's Brexiteers, but it's the Conservative Remainers who are failing to land any blows on behalf of the 48 per cent they claim to speak for.

Meantime, while she was persuading troublesome Remainers she would give them what they wanted, she was also persuading equally troublesome Brexiteers she would deliver for them. She knows she can't keep both happy. They know she can't keep them both happy. But since they hate each other more than they hate her they are willing to pretend that she is in their corner. She isn't, of course, in either corner, or in any corner at all; for to be in a corner requires you to have a specific position and policy or, at the very least, an exit route. None of which she has.

I can't recall a more pitifully weak PM in my lifetime. Even Edward Heath had beliefs he was willing to defend - even if those beliefs were mostly ridiculous and more suited to a Labour leader than a Conservative. She has nothing. Not a single thing. It's been revealed this week that the DUP has £100 fines for any of its representatives who step out of line on policy and say anything damaging to the party. I'm pretty sure most Conservative MPs (along with the press office staff) would happily stump up a £100 each if she could manage to get in front of camera or microphone (even her own party conference) and say something - anything - helpful to the party.

A Brexit deal has never been all that difficult to do. Honestly. The problem is that she doesn't want to do one: and in not wanting to do one she sends all sorts of mixed signals to the EU negotiators. She is also sending all sorts of mixed signals to her own party and to the UK as a whole. Deep down I think she wants to take a hit, the sort of hit that will force a second referendum. Her heart and head aren't in Leave. Nine months away from D Day and she still has no idea what to do - other than playing off all sides, buying time and praying for a miracle.

And therein lies the madness and futility of her position. She was seduced by the offer of power being handed to her on a plate, yet too stupid to realise that power can only truly be exercised in pursuit of an ambition to which you are intellectually, emotionally and politically committed. She has no commitment to Leave.

Which is maybe why Conservative Central Office was so keen for her to succeed Cameron. They were comfortable with the deal he had negotiated before the referendum. They didn't want Johnson or Gove or Leadsom in Number 10. They didn't want to leave the EU. They still don't. But they didn't take into reckoning the monumental scale and nature of her incompetence (particularly the dog's dinner she made of a snap general election when everything seemed to be in her favour).

So the UK is now in the worst possible position. A weak prime minister trying to sell something she doesn't want to sell; and worse, forced to endure one humiliation after another for it. It is crippling her. It is crippling her bargaining position. It is crippling the UK. Her plan seems to have been to do one thing while pretending to do another. Stupid plan. Stupid prime minister.