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The Decline of Politics into the Quest for ‘Unity’ Began With Theresa May

by J. Sorel
9 May 2023 11:39 AM

Theresa May became Prime Minister in July 2016, and for the next 11 months she had a command over national life not seen for a generation. No rise to power has ever been as swift or as unanimous. Theresa May did not have a policy, but a personality – and it inaugurated a new era which we have not yet left.

Theresa May was drawn from that class of upright professionals of the southern commuter belt which forms the upper stratum of Middle England. Though they look to the urban centres they are devoted to their local area, and take it upon themselves to run the different fêtes and festivals of suburban life. In continental Europe there are tens of millions of these people in every country, where they are the nucleus of a democratic citizenry. In Britain this class is too slender; hence their status as something of a local elite. They provide the officer corps of local government, and until very recently dominated it completely. They are almost always royalists, and form the social base of a lingering Anglicanism. They are conscientious, dutiful, and are the last repository of something like middle-class virtue as imagined by the British of the 1950s.

Of this class, May was a representative member. In Theresa May, mid-century Britain seemed to walk again. She was at heart a puzzled Anglican, a little at odds with some features of Blairite society but unfailingly obedient to its premises. She seemed to embody an old-fashioned tradition of public service. She was disciplined, courteous, and was not given to showmanship. One could superficially see in May an end to two decades of spin. She was shy and was not a strong speaker, but when set against these other virtues this only increased her appeal. It hinted at a greater depth of moral seriousness, of a determination to, in her words, “get on with the job“, while others strut and caper.

Theresa May’s personality has made her the cultural symbol of our age, but she only embraced it later in life. Like almost everyone, May’s public persona was subject to change. During the Cameron years she was cast as Right-wing enforcer, an old role that has ruined nearly all its occupants. She wore her hair in a threatening grey bob, and piloted the ‘hostile environment’ policy, which demanded that entrants into the country file their papers on time. But sometimes she pitched in the other direction, and spoke of racism in the police force. This was political hedging, but it was entirely unsophisticated, and only succeeded in annoying her colleagues. Though she held one of the great offices almost no one spoke of her as a future Prime Minister. There were no Mayites, still less was there a Mayism. David Cameron derided her as a “submarine”, and planned to sack her.

Theresa May’s career was over. New life came unexpectedly with a referendum, which, true to form, she took no part in. She quietly endorsed Remain and then fled into hiding. This was May’s first great stroke; when the smoke cleared in June 2016 she found herself hailed by Britain’s governing class as someone above the acrimony of the previous months. Theresa May had ducked the great issue of her time; this was now recast as an unshowy commitment to public service. Nowhere was it suggested that someone of her high office might have owed the British people an open avowal of her beliefs. Modern Britain, which hates debate, sees statesmanship as the ability to rise above the din of party. This idea is vulgar and authoritarian in premise, and May was its first great beneficiary.

Moreover, May-the-woman seemed to capture the prevailing mood just after the referendum, or, at least, the mood of its governing class. This was enough to propel her to Downing Street. Theresa May’s rise to power was the result of some of the worst features of English public life, some new, some old. One was the wry tenderness for Anglicanism common to Britain’s ruling classes. This kind of affection is irreligious, but defends the Established Church on aesthetic grounds and because of its assumed social role. The idea is a hackneyed one; it has been the public doctrine of Britain for about two centuries. In a time of general confusion, the political nation could find strange refuge in May’s personal piety. The second was the psycho-sexual hang-ups of Britain’s print media, particularly of its Tory wing. Journalists of the British Right filed sweaty articles about the no-nonsense May crushing Toryboys Johnson and Gove underfoot with her leopard-print high heels. This imagery, with its suggestions of sexual thraldom, was very much of the stunted bum-slap Carry On variety. Third was the new awe for unity and order. In the immediate aftermath of the referendum, Britain’s governing class did everything to gin up a state of crisis. Much was made of the supposed mess that bickering politicians had created; the answer was a caretaker Government to clean it up. In this way, a democratic vote was recast as an ipso facto national emergency. The sense of crisis; the showy disdain for ‘division’; the pleas for unity – these are always the first murmurs of democratic backsliding, and the Britain of 2016 proved no exception.

For these reasons, both personal and political, May could embody the idea of national caretaker that Britain’s rulers cried out for. Theresa May was happy to oblige them. Her pitch for the leadership was insulting in the extreme. May presented herself as a force for stability, and in doing so she supposed that there was instability. But there was none. What had just occurred was a perfectly ordinary democratic exercise. The failure of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to form a Government was, too, not a political crisis, but a party one. The normal machinery of parliamentary Government would have continued to function; it did not require May to save it.

In allowing herself to be swept along in a narrative of crisis, May took what was in retrospect a fateful step. It was the first stage in the long and gradual delegitimisation of the referendum result, something that has never been resolved. The May leadership invited the victors in a national vote to accept that their project had already failed. It treated their victory not as a mandate, but as a problem to be solved. But Britain’s democratic system did not need a caretaker, and by insisting otherwise May ended up doing it great damage. Democracy and unity are in many ways opposites; Mayite conscientiousness glorified the latter and weakened the former at a critical moment. We can only conclude that the British people were ill-served by Theresa May’s famous sense of duty, and that she should have inflicted it on someone else. Brexit was the making of May; it would eventually unmake her – but in the meantime she would redefine British politics for a generation.

Continued in Part II

Tags: BrexitDemocracyOmni-CrisisParliamentPolitical CrisisTheresa May

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26 Comments
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Alan M
Alan M
2 years ago

I have said it many a time; the problem with the referendum was that nobody expected “leave” to win, least of all the leave camp. Consequently when the result was announced, there was no plan as to who would take over, who would be in the negotiating team and when to trigger Article 50 (only when we had our plans for negotiation ready!). The result is we got May, allowed the EU to set the pace and the rules for the negotiations and here we are. In future classes on negotiation, there will be a section called “How not to negotiate – Brexit”.

78
-2
TheBasicMind
TheBasicMind
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan M

Cameron quite deliberately stymied the implementation prior to the vote. They had already had advice about how a referendum needs to be made legally binding or legal and constitutional chaos will ensue before the Scottish Independence Referendum was conducted, so there is no excuse. Cameron was fully aware of what he was doing when the Brexit referendum was run. Most Brexiteers, on the other hand, had no such awareness and were naive to the consequences of failing to ensure this point was covered. In other words, Cameron knew he was poisoning the well.

Last edited 2 years ago by TheBasicMind
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-3
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan M

One action that really did not help, and I will never forgive him for it, was Farage saying ‘The jobs done, now you sort it out’, and resigning. Either he genuinely thought that would happen, or he didn’t want to be involved in the subsequent fight to get it through. Either way, he looked like a coward.

38
-9
Smudger
Smudger
2 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Cameron vowed he would deliver the referendum outcome. Clearly he was either lying or he was made to pay the price for losing the referendum.

Farage naively believed him.

“I have never been, and I have never wanted to be, a career politician. My aim in being in politics was to get Britain out of the European Union,” he said.
“During the referendum campaign, I said ‘I want my country back’. What I’m saying today, is, ‘I want my life back,’ and it begins right now.”

https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2016/07/farage-quits-ukip-leadership-saying-my-job-is-done/

Last edited 2 years ago by Smudger
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EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
2 years ago
Reply to  Alan M

You write to suggest the mess and non-delivery of Brexit was a mistake or failure. In fact it was a well delivered plan to deny us the thing we voted for.

56
-1
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago

Blair and Cameron.

39
-1
JXB
JXB
2 years ago

‘…but a personality…’

Oh? Where did she keep that, in her trouser-pants pocket?

I’ve seen a British Rail sandwich with more personality.

86
0
LaptopMaestro
LaptopMaestro
2 years ago

Treesa the appeaser was useless, that’s why she was installed to screw up Brexit.

76
-1
zebedee
zebedee
2 years ago

Why did she apply for a job that she didn’t want?

10
0
Felice
Felice
2 years ago
Reply to  zebedee

Ah, but she did want it. I was a friend of hers at college, and I will never forget the time when she told us all that her ambition was to be the first female prime minister. Thatcher got there first, but having publicly stated on many occasions her ambition to be prime minister, she could not roll back it.

24
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  zebedee

And knew she couldn’t handle.

10
0
RW
RW
2 years ago

Is it 2016 again? Or why are the people who claim to be the stalwarts of that odd third of a perfectly random subset of the people living in Britain who actually voted for leave on the campaigning path again?

Some time last year, I ordered a bunch of old history books from a used books shop in Germany. In addition to the price of the books and the shipping which was several hundred pounds already, I had to pay about another hundred customs duty, God only know why (AFAICT, this shouldn’t apply to books). That’s proof positive that Britain has actually left the EU. Hence: Referendum result delivered, case closed.

That you got what you voted for obviously doesn’t mean that what you’ve voted for is what you would like to have gotten instead, eg, less immigration instead of record levels of so-called global majority people coming here to re-unite with the families etc, is your problem. Read the small print next time. This was clearly advertised beforehand.

3
-40
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

I’m not too bothered about the small print – for me it was about long term direction – closer integration or more sovereignty. We probably won’t use that sovereignty wisely, but that’s another matter.

Regarding immigration, I’m sure that was a big part of why people voted leave. I never really expected immigration to reduce as a result of leaving, but now they have even less hiding place and cannot wave their hands and say “well we can’t reduce immigration because our hands are tied by the EU”. Of course, if people keep voting Tory (or any other mainstream party) believing their claims regarding immigration, they are idiots – but we knew that, too.

37
0
Nearhorburian
Nearhorburian
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

Levels of immigratiom from outside the EU were always down to the UK government,not the EU and I’m pretty sure that there wasn’t a single year after Poland joined when the majority of immigrants weren’t non-EU.

The current levels of immigration are happening because the UK government wants them. The idea that they’re the inevitable consequence of leaving the EU is nonsense.

40
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RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  Nearhorburian

Indeed. That’s presumably the reason why you wrote that and I didn’t.

An important part of leaving the EU was supposed to Take back control of immigration! with many Leave-voters probably assuming this would mean Reduce immigration which is only as high as it is because we are not in control!
But that wasn’t ever really true and reducing overall immigration was never really the plan, public Tory committments to the contrary notwithstanding. For a sizable part of the electorate for this referendum, Less immigration opportunities for Europeans means more of them for your people was among the selling points. An example of that would be May’s statement regarding the EU queue jumpers.

6
-3
Nearhorburian
Nearhorburian
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

“That you got what you voted for..”

We voted to leave the EU. As I’ve pointed out, non-EU immigration was never an EU competence so voting to leave couldn’t mean either voting for more non-EU immigration or the UK government being able to import more Third Worlders outside the EU than it could inside.

What happened was that there was a gear-change in the destruction of this country through, amongst other things, Third World immigration. The gear-change happened after the referendum but was in no way dependant on or resulting from the referendum.

15
0
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  Nearhorburian

As I’ve pointed out, non-EU immigration was never an EU competence

The obvious you’ve now (quite uselessly) asserted twice remains as obvious as it already was before you chose to do so.

so voting to leave couldn’t mean either voting for more non-EU immigration or the UK government being able to import more Third Worlders outside the EU than it could inside.

The amount of workplaces in the UK which can be filled with foreigners is limited. Prior to the UK leaving the EU, citizens of other EU member states had preferred access to the UK job market at the expense of citizens of non-EU-states, especially, non-EU Commonwealth members. This is no longer the case. Everybody’s at the mercy of the home office now. This has improved the situation of prospective immigrants from Commonwealth member states who are (and always were) already politically strongly privileged (right of vote regardless of their citizenship).

0
-6
Nearhorburian
Nearhorburian
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

There was nothing to stop the UK government giving Commonwealth citizens the same rights to move here for work as EU citizens.

Migration Visas have never just been restricted to people coming here for work purposes.

Therefore there was no need to leave the EU to increase Third World immigration, and our establishment clearly didn’t want to leave: remember how unhappy Johmson looked on hearing the result?

Your argument that the immigration we’re experiencing results from our voting Leave is laughable.

10
0
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  Nearhorburian

Your inability to understand simple facts (such as less jobs taken by EU immigrants who had e a right to come to the UK to look for work => more job opportunities for non-EU-immigrants) is laughable.

0
-7
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

‘… I had to pay about another hundred customs duty, God only know why…’

Because your are in the EU which is a protectionist scam which favours EU businesses at the expense of consumers.

It’s the same hundred customs duty someone in the UK would have had to pay when it was in the EU for books coming from outside the EU.

One of the advantages of leaving the EU, was EU tariffs and non-tariffs no longer would have to be applied on imports into the UK which could establish free trade.

The UK hasn’t – it’s still applying EU tariffs and non-tariffs and regulatory framework, and has not established a free trade economy.

So the UK hasn’t in fact got the Brexit 52% of voters wanted.

27
0
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  JXB

Last time I looked, Reading was in Berkshire. That’s a part of England outside of the EU. Further, customs duty was imposed by HMRC (that’s Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs which is not a part of the EU administration) but as far as I can tell, this shouldn’t have happened because books are supposed to be exempt from this (I may well be wrong on that, though).

In any case, the point was supposed to be that there’s now a customs border between England and Germany (or rather, between England and the EU) which enables unelected UK bureaucrats to fine private persons for buying improper stuff (like old foreign books) and because of this, the British government could award itself 95-and-something pounds of my money.

4
-8
Monro
Monro
2 years ago

Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron/Clegg, May, Bunter…….

Different characters but nothing much to choose between the lot of them in terms of their general ‘make do and muddle’ approach to policy.

But we have had that before: Attlee, Eden, Heath, Wilson, Callaghan…..

Churchill was Churchill. Macmillan got houses built; Sir Alec Douglas Home: a legend but with a face for radio. Thatcher got houses into the hands of most who wanted them.

All the rest have been responsible for the utter shambles that the country is in today.

And still they queue round the block to get here…..

Democracy: the least worst system of government.

18
0
LaptopMaestro
LaptopMaestro
2 years ago
Reply to  Monro

Attlee set up the NHS Ponzi scheme – guaranteed to implode

10
0
JayBee
JayBee
2 years ago

For politicians, the desire to unite the country is what the scientific consensus and following the science is for ‘scientists’.
No wonder, both are just oxymorons.

8
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago

Treason May certainly embodied the prevailing mood of the Governing Class:

a belief in their God-given superiority; their sneering contempt for the views of the working class; a belief that “our friends” in the EU are “jolly good chaps;” and a combination of incompetence, deceitfulness and cowardice of people who have never had to suffer real adversity and fight for something in their lives.

It’s why, when she called a completely unnecessary General Election, she failed to win a majority. The Brexit-voting majority instinctively knew she wasn’t on their side.

We have exactly the same in Sunak/Hunt and Starmer.

15
0
Prickly Thistle
Prickly Thistle
2 years ago

May had a personality? Really?

10
0

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