We had been promised a red, white and blue Brexit but the colour scheme for Theresa May’s big speech was monochrome. A white lectern, white backdrop, white blouse, perhaps even a few white lies.
It reminded me of the Yasmina Reza play Art, which has just been revived in the West End. Three men argue over their interpretation of a white canvas. The one who paid a fortune for it sees detail and nuance, even vibrant colours, that the others cannot. They bluff, argue and fall out. Can three friends — never mind 28 — ever get on when they cannot agree on what they are looking at?
For Mrs May, the lines that she has drawn upon her white canvas are quite clear. She has a 12-point plan, a dodecahedron of diplomacy. Twelve, note, not ten: a decimal negotiating stance sounds awfully continental. This will have caused much discussion in Downing Street.
“Can you find me a couple more bullet points, Tarquin? The PM wants to beef it up to 12. Yeah, she thinks it sounds more British. Will play well in the rural seats where they don’t like it metric. No, we can’t just ask them to give us back Calais — think of all those migrants. We could ask them for Burgundy. . .”
If the dignitaries in the grand gallery of Lancaster House wanted a reminder of our past they only had to look to either side of the stage, at the huge portraits of men in silly wigs hanging on the walls, or up at the impressive golden ceiling. Mrs May’s whitewashed backdrop tried to mask Old Britain’s gilt complex.
Advertisement
This was where Margaret Thatcher had given her “Europe Open for Business” speech in 1988, in which she had sung the praises of the single market, now ditched by Mrs May (though Philip Hammond, the chancellor, had scooped her by telling the Commons a few minutes earlier). It was where Malaya, South Africa and Rhodesia had pushed for independence from Britain.
Now Mrs May was setting Britain itself free against a white wall that seemed to glow ever brighter under the camera lights, while the 125ft-room gave her voice an echo. Is this what purgatory will be like? A radiant waiting room in which a bossy angel explains your options: be good and it’s up, up, up to a glorious nirvana for all; be bad and you’re going down to devil-town.
Mrs May tried to be emollient at first. The room was full of EU ambassadors and it is good diplomacy to start with an armful of compliments. This is not a rejection of the values we share, she said. We still love you. We just can’t stand living with you any more.
Then came her dodecahedron of diplomacy, followed by the threats. First at those who had been pushing Mrs May for more detail. “This is not a game,” she said. “Every stray word, every hyped-up media report is going to make it harder for us.” She had already held the press in a windowless, wifi-free basement room for 90 minutes before the speech. It will be the Tower next for any irritants.
Then the threats to the EU 27. Do not punish us because we dare to leave, she said. Do not be petty, do not endanger your own people’s economic success just to stick one to Blighty. You need our spies, you need our military, you need the protection of our nuclear weapons. Any tricks and you’re on your own against Big Bad Vlad. After six months of evasion and obfuscation, finally we had a glimpse of a prime minister with a backbone. Europe remembers the determination of one Iron Lady. Was this the first outing of the Tungsten Theresa?