The disclosure of Theresa May’s private Brexit campaign speech to US bankers, Goldman Sachs, cannot be dismissed as an unsurprising confirmation of her pre-referendum remain views.
For it clearly shows that in private she was prepared to articulate a much stronger attachment to staying in the European Union than the lukewarm public support she gave to the remain campaign in the one major public speech she made during the campaign.
There is also a reason to believe that the Goldman Sachs speech was much closer to her own personal views because they reflect the fact that May’s entire career before going into politics was at the Bank of England and as a European lobbyist for the financial service industry.
In both speeches she stressed her belief that Britain should take a lead in Europe and voters should look to a future of reform rather than to past failures.
But in her private hour-long session with Goldman Sachs she went much further and revealed her strong support for Britain remaining in the single market. She went on to deliver a stark warning that leaving the single market would deter international investors from Britain and lead major companies to question whether they should relocate to mainland Europe.
The crucial passage reads: “I think being part of a 500-million trading bloc is significant for us. I think, as I was saying to you a little earlier, that one of the issues is that a lot of people will invest here in the UK because it is the UK in Europe.
“If we were not in Europe, I think there would be firms and companies who would be looking to say: do they need to develop a mainland presence rather than a UK presence? So I think there are definite benefits for us in economic terms.”
It is true both public and private speeches contained warnings about the dangers of jeopardising European cooperation on counter-terrorism and policing. But May deliberately included a strong attack on the European convention on human rights, knowing it would be widely, but inaccurately, portrayed as evidence of being a secret Brexiter at heart regardless of the fact the ECHR has nothing to do with the EU.
Since becoming prime minister May has had to accept the result of the Brexit vote. In the process she has recalibrated her public rhetoric on Brexit by qualifying the need for British companies to have “the maximum freedom to trade and operate in the single market” by saying it must not be at the expense of “giving up control of immigration again”. She has also promised Britain will not accept rulings from the EU’s European court of justice.
These carefully calculated shifts in language have led some to conclude she is now set on the path to hard Brexit. But her private Goldman Sachs speech just five months ago makes clear that she personally believes a future out of the single market means a business exodus from Britain.
Perhaps she should spell out her views about hard Brexit to the British people rather than giving American bankers the inside track.
