If the official Downing Street briefing is to be believed, Theresa May will tell her ministers today that unofficial briefing about what is said in cabinet must stop. She is right. Those manoeuvring to replace her have shown little sign since the election of paying much attention to her warnings, but they all stand to lose political ground if cabinet discipline unravels, and the country stands to lose a great deal more.
Without freedom to air ministerial differences in private, such differences will never be resolved. Without agreed public positions on dominant issues at home, including public sector pay, and in Brussels, chief among them Britain’s goals in the Brexit process, this fragile minority government will fall apart. That would plunge the country back into political chaos from which it could all too easily emerge with a new government led by Jeremy Corbyn.
The prime minister may be on borrowed time but that is no reason to surrender to neo-Marxism. Between the confusion of Labour’s Brexit strategy and the ideological purity of the Conservatives’ hardline Eurosceptics lies a pragmatic approach being pursued by the chancellor, Philip Hammond. He is neither charismatic nor intuitive but he has been strengthened by the election just as Mrs May has been weakened. She sought a mandate for a Brexit that would cut immigration from Europe first and foremost, even at the cost of growth and trade. Mr Hammond stands for an approach that minimises damage to the economy. That entails a transition period during which Britain remains within the EU’s single market and customs union. That is why hardliners have been briefing so furiously against him. They should show more self-restraint. Instead of leaking against Mr Hammond they should start listening to him.
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, went to Brussels yesterday resolving to “get down to work” at the resumption of talks with Michel Barnier, his opposite number from the European Commission. The two men appear to have established a reasonable rapport but Mr Barnier is acutely conscious of the passage of time. Mr Davis should be too. He knows that the pair must show progress on citizens’ rights, Britain’s financial settlement with Europe and the Northern Irish border before the EU’s other 27 members allow trade talks to start. So far there appears to have been little progress.
In these circumstances the idea of Britain and Europe agreeing both divorce and trade terms by March 2019 seems far fetched. That is why the question of how to agree transitional arrangements, and for how long, has taken on such fundamental importance. It would help if Mrs May were to take a firm view, but she appears too fearful of the hardliners to make her mind up. Mr Hammond rightly supports a transition period and is being hounded for it.
Advertisement
Five senior anonymous sources briefed against the chancellor at the weekend, painting him as callous on public sector pay and even sexist on who can drive a train. The episode said more about the briefers than the briefed-against. Those who think that they stand to gain by weakening Mr Hammond include Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Chris Grayling, Andrea Leadsom and Mr Davis. They or their “friends” are behaving as if the chancellor were a minor irritant lying in the path of the Brexit juggernaut. In reality the election has left him the most powerful figure in the cabinet as the man in charge of the economy. He is the only one to have stuck to an achievable position on Brexit since the referendum.
The stakes are too high for this recklessness. The future of the country is at risk and it requires serious people with serious aims to secure the best deal for Britain. The cabinet has to unite in order to avoid a much more worrying alternative.