Theresa May becomes the new leader of the Conservative Party and the next Prime Minister after what was, in effect, a single issue general election. We have not only a new Prime Minister but what will in reality be a new Conservative government with different policies at home and abroad than the one David Cameron led to victory at the 2015 General Election. The old order has gone.
The European Union referendum was always about more, much more, than simply whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the EU. In reality Britain has always been half in and half out of that project. It was a late arrival to membership and never more than half-hearted in its commitment. Britain never had its heart in Brussels.
The forces that erupted under David Cameron, and which in the end he could not resist, were more powerful than any one Prime Minister could deal with. On the European issue his leadership was always one of a managed retreat and tactical manoeuvre. With his withdrawal of Conservative MPs from the EPP in opposition, and later use of the veto at summits, David Cameron was in effect the most practically Eurosceptic leader the Conservative Party and the country has ever had. It did him no good, but a leader less skilful in political tactics would probably have fallen even sooner.
In time David Cameron will come to be seen as the last Prime Minister of the old order, a political leader whose ideas and approach were forged in a different era when the British people were deciding they wanted something different.
Faced with the choice of Ed Miliband’s Labour and David Cameron’s Conservatives the British people were in effect given no choice at all at the 2015 election. It was the referendum of last month that gave people the real choice, and it will lead to the refashioning of the one functioning UK political party that exists (outside Scotland) into something voters can more willingly support. The referendum has forced wholesale and swift change on a Conservative Party whose base instinct is always survival and the retention of political power.
Mrs May, a highly experienced and resilient politician, has already a signalled a change in domestic policy. More policy changes will follow as the UK prepares for Brexit. But what should be the priorities of Theresa May’s new administration?
1) There should be a new focus on a fairer distribution of national wealth and opportunity and the end of the acceptance of the ever growing divide between London and the rest of the country. The challenge of Disraeli’s two nations needs an effective response.
2) There needs to be refashioning of central government itself, which has become top-heavy and cumbersome.
3) A successful Brexit process will have to involve the creation of a new foreign policy, with a focus on trade and building strategic alliances.
4) Britain needs a new economic policy, that continues to address the UK’s relentlessly rising national debt and low productivity, while building an environment in which business and entrepreneurship can thrive.
5) Move to end the institutionalised thinking that presents Britain as weak and vulnerable, to an outlook of confidence and internationalism.
6) Recognise that domestic politics is changing fast. Labour’s weakness could see the arrival of a number of UKIP MPs in the House of Commons at the next General Election, whenever it is held.
7) The greatest task of all will be healing a nation divided, pulled apart by devolution, economic disparity and then the referendum itself.
It is a huge task confronting her. A daunting task. But Theresa May will arrive in No 10 at a moment of huge and exciting opportunity for Britain.