Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem. Tim Shipman
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‘the greatest possible access to it through a new, comprehensive, bold and ambitious free trade agreement’.
The plan Nick Timothy had devised in September was made flesh. His and May’s greatest achievement was to make seem inevitable what after the referendum had only been logical. Having moved fast to put Britain on this path they had set a course from which the government could not be diverted. By waiting four months to make it explicit, much of the heat that might have led to the plan being contested had dissipated.
May repeated her priority to ‘get control over the number of people coming to Britain from the EU’ and ducked the chance to make a unilateral offer to EU citizens living in the UK. On the money, she said ‘vast contributions’ to the EU budget ‘will end’, but left open the prospect that Britain might pay to remain in ‘specific European programmes’. Significantly, she also announced that she wanted a phased ‘implementation period’ because it was ‘in no one’s interests to have a cliff-edge’, but made clear this would not mean the ‘permanent political purgatory’ of an indefinite interim deal. Hammond had his transition period, though under another name. May struck a far warmer tone than at the party conference, telling her fellow EU leaders, ‘It remains overwhelmingly and compellingly in Britain’s national interest that the EU should succeed.’
The speech was generally well received at home and abroad. Whatever their differences, it was a text the whole cabinet felt able to support. A source close to May said, ‘Some of the divides between Leave and Remain camps were healing because ministers from both sides of the campaign were very happy with that speech and thought it was the right concept.’
Boris Johnson could be seen nodding vigorously while May spoke. At the cabinet that followed he declared it ‘a great day’. Even Hammond seemed happy, pronouncing it ‘a seminal moment’ and ‘an excellent speech’. ‘He was so sycophantic,’ a witness recalled. ‘There were many rolled eyes.’ While Remainers like Nicky Morgan were unhappy that May had confirmed hard Brexit, there was relief that the position was now clear. The Eurosceptics were delighted. Nick Timothy received supportive messages from Iain Duncan Smith and John Redwood. Steve Baker wrote in his diary, ‘Amazing speech, joy abounds.’ A Downing Street source recalled, ‘We were incredibly pleased with how well it landed. For a short time, it looked like we had managed to unite all sides of the Conservative Party around this issue.’
There was just one dark cloud on the horizon in Number 10. Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill had asked Katie Perrior to organise a series of op-ed articles in European newspapers. A Downing Street aide said, ‘The op-eds didn’t happen. It was the press office’s job to make it happen. They would say that Katie had not delivered on that.’ The tensions between Hill and Perrior, which had exploded over ‘Trousergate’, would not be long in coming to the boil.
Nonetheless the reaction from the rest of the EU was calm. The other countries recognised that May had respected the integrity of the single market by acknowledging that the four freedoms were not something from which Britain could pick and choose. A cabinet minister said, ‘A lot of them thought we wanted to stay in the single market but leave the EU. For a lot of them that redressed their fear that we wanted to be there having it all.’ Another minister, who walked out of Lancaster House with several EU ambassadors, said, ‘They liked the clarity. They didn’t like what she was saying, they liked the fact that it has set the course and they knew what Britain wanted. Lancaster House was her finest hour.’
The experience of dealing with a group of outside egos arguing over populist policies stood May in good stead for her next assignment. On 27 January, ten days after the Lancaster House speech, she was due in Washington, the first foreign leader to visit the forty-fifth president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
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One minute before midnight a huge cheer rang out from the packed auditorium of the US embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square. The giant screen flashed with the news that the Associated Press were calling the state of Vermont for Hillary Clinton, with its three electoral votes. The cream of political London and liberal high society let out a sigh of relief. It was presidential election night and the Democrat frontrunner finally had a state on the board. London was five hours ahead of the US and drink had been taken. In the foyer outside and in a large party area downstairs, thousands of well-dressed Londoners congratulated themselves on having the best invite in town, rubbing shoulders with cabinet ministers and veterans of past Washington administrations. Even the lead singer of the rock band Muse was there.
To those following things more closely on the big screen, the Vermont cheer would be as significant as the ‘Sunderland roar’ on Brexit night, the first symbol of a world turned upside down. Talking together against the far wall of the auditorium, several journalists, a minister of the crown and a special adviser smiled at the naïvety of the other guests. ‘Forget Vermont,’ said one. ‘Look at Florida.’ In the Sunshine State Clinton was closing on Trump, but not fast enough. Elsewhere Trump was heading for victory in the rust-belt states of Michigan and Wisconsin, the latter of which Clinton had never even bothered to visit. As it became clear that Trump was on course for the most unlikely victory in presidential history, the crowd thinned out, leaving just the hardcore hacks and US political nerds while the man from Muse posed for selfies. The Vermont roar was symbolic of a liberal establishment that had again got it wrong.
As dawn broke over London, Sir Kim Darroch, the UK’s ambassador to the United States, sat down to write a memo, explaining what had happened and what Britain should now do to cash in. He wrote, ‘At 6 p.m. this evening, Donald Trump was perhaps the only person in America who still believed he had a chance … The Trump team, some of whom we were with early in the evening, were sure they had lost; the Clinton campaign was celebrating. By 7 p.m., Fox News was privately telling the campaign that they were going to call the race for Clinton before 10 p.m. … then the results started to come in.’ He said the ‘electoral earthquake’ which had propelled Trump to power had led to ‘fear and loathing’ in Washington. However, he suggested, Trump was ‘an outsider and unknown quantity’, who ‘will surely evolve and, particularly, be open to outside influence if pitched right. Having, we believe, built better relationships with his team than have the rest of the Washington diplomatic corps, we should be well placed to do this.’1
Darroch – a bright, smooth operator who had held the most prestigious diplomatic posts in Brussels, Downing Street and the Foreign Office under four prime ministers – had engaged with Trump surrogates like Senator Jeff Sessions over a period of months, as had Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan. But Darroch had a problem. Bright and smooth did not get you very far with Donald Trump himself. The ambassador was already behind a self-appointed British envoy to the court of The Donald: Nigel Farage.
Theresa May was on her way home from a trade trip to India as America was voting. Tom Swarbrick, the prime minister’s head of broadcast, attended the embassy party. He left at 4 a.m. and went straight to Downing Street. Around 7 a.m., with Hillary Clinton conceding defeat, Swarbrick was slumped dishevelled in his chair when there was a knock on the door. ‘Morning, Tom,’ said a very breezy voice. Swarbrick leapt to his feet and said, ‘Good morning, Prime Minister.’ May looked perfectly refreshed. ‘So, what’s your plan?’ Katie Perrior was in her office curling her hair with hot irons a little later when the prime minister walked in – another rare foray into the world of the press office – to agree the quote they would issue to reporters. ‘If my friends from Erith School could have seen me, they would have choked on their toast,’ she told a friend later.
May recorded a clip for the broadcasters congratulating Trump on his victory, in which she said, ‘We have a longstanding and enduring special relationship which is built on our shared values, of freedom, of democracy and enterprise. I look forward to working with president-elect Trump to ensure we can maintain the security and prosperity of our two nations in the future.’ In the months ahead that relationship was to experience unusual strains, and efforts