Theresa May has won a truce on Brexit – but it won’t last long

It’s quiet – too quiet.” It was, I think, John Wayne who first drawled that line of knowing scepticism, in the 1934 B-movie western The Lucky Texan. But it seems no less apt this week, as the Tory prairie remains suspiciously peaceful in response to Theresa May’s speech on Brexit, delivered at the Mansion House on Friday. True, Michael Heseltine has performed his quasi-constitutional role as lord privy Europhile by dismissing the prime minister’s remarks as no more than “phrases, generalisations and platitudes”. There are reports too of a dirty tricks operation at No 10 to undermine the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, (vigorously denied all round).

Yet the Conservative reaction to the speech has been remarkably cordial. Less than a week ago, it was bellicose business as usual. On the eve of the prime minister’s big speech, John Major declared that “many electors know they were misled” over Brexit, that “many more are beginning to realise it”, and: “The electorate has every right to reconsider their decision.”


Source : theguardian