In an image that will endure for as long as she is remembered, Theresa May danced in to deliver her conference speech in Birmingham. Wisely, she chose Dancing Queen to show off her moves rather than Waterloo, which would have sent the wrong message. But the deeper message to her party was to get behind her. It was Take a Chance On Me – the remix.
Politicians and the media are often accused, with some justice, of making too much of leaders’ conference speeches, of setting the bar impossibly high for ordeals that are over-interpreted for a few hours, then quickly forgotten. For Tory leaders, as for Labour ones, the lovingly honed speeches then merge into a morass of semi-remembered oratorical stodge from which the occasional zinger – in the Tory case about ladies not being for turning, quiet men turning up the volume or countries being at ease with themselves – still catches the sunlight in the memory.
The verbal flourishes of May’s third conference speech as leader will not glint for as long as the memories of her first two still do. In 2016 she recklessly attacked the half of the country who voted remain in the Brexit referendum for preferring to be “citizens of nowhere”, destroying at a stroke any possibility that she might speak to both sides of a deeply wounded country. Last year, meanwhile, was memorable only for the excruciating ordeal of her coughing, the collapsing letters of the backdrop, and the security breach that allowed a joker to hand her a P45 dismissal notice.
Yet her 2018 speech may outlive both of its predecessors in importance. It was a speech in which the prime minister said what she meant and meant what she said. It combined a call for unity behind her battered-but-unbowed Brexit strategy – which will have been heeded by almost no one in the hall – with an emphatic attempt to pitch the Tory party’s tent on the vacant but unfashionable centre ground of British politics. The “decent, moderate and patriotic” post-austerity party that she conjured in her speech – a party for everyone, “with nowhere left behind” – is beyond question a dream close to her heart.
But May has been here before. Actions have not lived up to the words. Two years ago, she stood on the steps of Downing Street and promised action against the burning injustices of the 21st century. After that, however, nothing much happened. Then, a year ago, she launched a general election manifesto that promised to govern from the mainstream, asserting the good that government can do. This too came to nothing. In both cases, Brexit loomed too large, and May had too little authority to turn words into actions.
Is there any reason now to assume that this besieged and emotionally remote leader of a deeply divided party will do any better the third time around? It would be a bold punt to say yes. Many Tory activists are opposed to her policy on Brexit. Large parts of the party have already written her off. She struggles to control a hung parliament. And a shameless successor waits impatiently in the wings. Less than an hour before May danced on to the stage in Birmingham, a Tory MP submitted a letter calling on her to resign.
These are not propitious circumstances for May to become, the third time around, the leader she still evidently dreams of being. Yet I have written before that Theresa May is too easily written off. A year ago, after the 2017 election, George Osborne dismissed her as a dead woman walking. Many in Birmingham this week took the same view. Yet May still has her walking boots on. It would be astonishing if she fights the next election as Conservative leader. Yet the cabinet ministers who say she could last until 2021 could still be right.
May has a few things on her side, that cannot be simply ignored. First, she is the incumbent. The Tory party punishes incumbent leaders when it is self-evidently in their interest to dismiss them – as it did to Margaret Thatcher in 1990. But that is not the case right now. The Brexit timetable, which will be intense for the next six months, works in favour of May and against any attempt to hold a leadership contest, especially if she gets a deal with the EU. Although one MP called for her to go, there were none of the government resignations this week that were being talked about beforehand.
Second, any Brexit deal she gets through parliament strengthens her. Too many Tories assume that, as soon as May gets a Brexit deal – if she does – the party can do what Britain did to Churchill in 1945, and say: thank you – and now, goodbye. Looking at the strains on May’s face these days, she could easily be tempted to quit then. But May would also be the Tory leader who had delivered Brexit – an act that, whatever its other effects, would surely impress leavers. At the same time, judging by her centrist speech in Birmingham, she might well seem the least worst leader, from a remain point of view, in Brexit’s immediate aftermath.
Third, the Tory party is not suffering electorally. In spite of Brexit, the Conservatives are matching Labour in the polls, and sometimes pulling ahead. There have been no Tory byelection horrors in this parliament, as there were in John Major’s era. The Tories require a mere 0.6% swing to win an overall majority, so time may be on their side if voters begin to feel the end of austerity, which May promised. May also has a lot of support among Tories for being dutiful, hard-working, conscientious and doing a difficult job under pressure.
Fourth, she is lucky in her challengers. Boris Johnson has immense ambition and formidable party support, as his speech in Birmingham this week showed. But the old indulgence towards him among Tory MPs has disappeared. The polling shows no party advantage from him replacing May. Former allies say he is no longer the party’s future. Even the Daily Mail criticised him yesterday. His main liberal rival, Ruth Davidson, remains committed to running in the Scottish elections in 2021 and not moving to Westminster. The cabinet hopefuls, of whom Sajid Javid had the best conference, continue to wait on events, though a dozen hats are likely to be thrown in the ring when there is a contest.
May is not in the clear. Talks with the EU could implode. She could lose Commons votes. The Tories could explode. The DUP could turn against her. May’s bunker mentality and her lack of emotional intelligence may simply prove too destructive. But as Gordon Brown (who as the newly published 2017 general election study points out, has more in common with May than either of them might wish to admit) once said: “This is no time for a novice.”
• Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
