The Daily - The Agony of Being Theresa May

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

After months of trying and failing to pass a deal on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May had one final thing to offer: herself. Guest: Ellen Barry, chief international correspondent for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, after months of trying and failing to put forward a deal for how the UK could leave the European Union, Theresa May had one final thing to offer herself. had one final thing to offer. Herself. It's Monday, April 1st. Thank you for calling the London office of the New York Times. Hello?

Oh, hello. How are you, Ellen? I'm great. I'm so sorry that we've had technical difficulties this morning. Not to worry. It wouldn't be The Daily if we didn't have a little technical difficulty. Okay, so here we go, Ellen. Tell me when you are ready. Ready. Okay. Ellen Barry is a Times correspondent in London. correspondent in London.

So last Wednesday, in the middle of the day, Theresa May called her party members to Committee Room 14, which is a sort of big committee room somewhere in the bowels of Westminster Palace. It was quite unclear what this was about. There was loads of speculation that she would perhaps fire her chief negotiator for Brexit, who is widely despised by right-wingers in her party. that she would perhaps fire her chief negotiator for Brexit,

who is widely despised by right-wingers in her party. The world's cameras are trained on the British Parliament waiting for a Brexit breakthrough. For many, the workings of this House appear increasingly mystifying. But after months of Brexit paralysis, could things be starting to move? So at five o'clock, conservative lawmakers began crowding into this room and it was, by all accounts, stifling and completely packed. The Minister for International Development couldn't even get in there and was watching through the keyhole. And it is traditional in these gatherings that when the Prime Minister

comes in, people bang on the tables with their hands. It's kind of like a tribal drumbeat. And so then the room went silent. The door closed, the room went silent. And what was said in there was said only to each other. But meetings like this leak like sieves. In a closed meeting with conservative MPs, Theresa May said she's prepared to make the ultimate move. Gradually, the outside world came to know

that the thing that she was prepared to offer in exchange for their votes was herself. She concluded by asking everyone in the room to back her deal to allow for a smooth and orderly Brexit. She basically said, I'll make you a deal. If you vote for this, if you vote for the withdrawal agreement and get it through, then I will step down as prime minister.

Hmm. Brexit from my head. Basically. Ellen, how did all of this happen? How did Theresa May end up being at the center of Brexit? So the funny thing is that Brexit was never Theresa May's issue. She kind of kept her head down, but she was a remainer. She voted to stay inside the European Union and really just stayed out of the whole public debate over Brexit to a great extent. And it was really somewhat by accident that she became

prime minister. David Cameron is back in Downing Street, a happy man after a surprise election victory. Against most predictions, his party has won a slim but outright majority. It started with David Cameron, who is basically hoping to stop a hemorrhage of MPs from switching sides and going to UKIP, which was the Brexit party. We will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice. And he made me gamble. To stay in the European Union on these new terms

or to come out altogether. It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time for us to settle this question about Britain and Europe. It was essentially to kind of assuage the hard right of his party. He thought he could essentially throw them a bone and get them on side. And he did so expecting that the country would vote to remain. And it just came as a kind of staggering surprise on June 23rd of 2016 when the results came out and it was 52 to 48 percent for leaving the European Union. The British people have voted to leave the European Union and their will must be respected.

And because David Cameron had been squarely opposed to leaving the European Union, he then announced that he was going to step down as prime minister rather than lead the country through the process of leaving. I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction. fresh leadership to take it in this direction. I will do everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months. But I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination.

So why does Theresa May end up taking his place if she had been a remainer, if she had been opposed to Brexit? So Theresa May ended up taking his place if she had been a remainer, if she had been opposed to Brexit? So, Theresa May ended up taking his place because the men who were the obvious frontrunners to be his successors kind of took each other out in the political fistfight that followed. And I suppose she was appealing in a sense that she was quite different from all of those top Tory men. There's a phrase they use at Balliol College, which is the tranquil assurance of effortless superiority. Some people would say sometimes life as a vicar's daughter can have its ups and downs.

Theresa May is nothing like that. I mean, not on any level. But I feel hugely privileged, actually, in the childhood that I had. She was the daughter of a small-town vicar and the granddaughter of two ladies' maids and the great-granddaughter of a butler. So she came from a family with a really long sense of public service and duty. What's the naughtiest thing you ever did? Oh, goodness me. Well, I suppose the... Gosh, do you know?

I'm not quite sure. There must have been a moment. Nobody is ever perfectly behaved, are they? I mean, you know, I have to confess when me and my friends sort of used to run through the fields of wheat, the farmers weren't too pleased about that. So she seemed like one of the grown-ups in the room at the time, someone who could potentially bring the country back together after an incredibly difficult and divisive referendum campaign.

So the men who create Brexit essentially self-immolate, and the party turns to Theresa May. Yes, she cast herself as someone who was trying to do the least damage. I mean, instead of projecting enthusiasm about the mission of Brexit, she tended to express a sense of duty that she had taken on the job. She was going to finish the job. We are living through an important moment in our country's history. Following the referendum, we face a time of great national change. And I know because we're Great Britain that we will rise to the challenge. But it didn't take long for her to start making serious blunders around Brexit, because it turned out that she is one of the worst retail politicians that Britain has ever seen. I know that the public sector has had to carry a heavy burden. The private sector

has played its part too. But with government, businesses, and the public sector working together, we have bounced back. She is wooden. She is unable to speak off script. She cannot generate warmth. She seems sort of congenitally unable to generate warmth. Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it. She went out on the stump and repeated kind of robotically, Brexit means Brexit. A set of phrases that she had been briefed on because Brexit means Brexit. And she earned the nickname the Maybot because she was seemingly unable to come up with different answers, even when the same question was asked her repeatedly. Well, the reason I've been saying Brexit means Brexit is

precisely because it does. This is what history looks like. The official letter formally starting the process of Britain leaving the European Union is delivered. So she made a series of very significant blunders that year. One of them, maybe the most important one, is that she triggered Article 50. The Article 50 process is now underway. And in accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union. Which started the clock ticking towards an end date, an exit date of March 29. This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back. Britain is leaving the European Union.

We are going to make our own decisions and our own laws. As soon as she started that, the EU had an enormous advantage in the negotiations. This is a decisive step which enables us to move on and finalise the deal in the days ahead. us to move on and finalize the deal in the days ahead. These decisions were not taken lightly, but I believe it is a decision that is firmly in the national interest. I mean, she also, as a general matter, she played her cards incredibly close to her vest throughout the negotiation. So the country really didn't know where she was going with this process until quite late last year when she shared her withdrawal agreement with the country. When you strip away the detail, the choice before

us is clear. This deal, which delivers on the vote of the referendum, which brings back control of our money, laws, and borders, ends free movement, protects jobs, security, and our union, or leave with no deal or no Brexit at all. And it went over like a lead balloon. And why was that? Well, she laid out a series of red lines that were in fact very hard Brexit red lines. No one knew up until that point that she was planning to exit the customs union and the single market.

And because we will no longer be members of the single market, we will not be required to contribute huge sums to the EU budget. The days of Britain making vast contributions to the European Union every year will end. And why is that ultimately a blunder? end. And why is that ultimately a blunder? Well, they had no solution for what would turn out to be the fatal problem with that plan, which is Britain is not an island. There is a land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. And you cannot just walk away from the customs union without creating some kind of a border. And of course, that open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic had been the subject of a 30-year armed struggle and a hard-fought peace agreement. So to gloss over it was sort of not looking at the problem,

which was going to block this thing at the end. The choices before us were difficult, particularly in relation to the Northern Ireland backstop. But the way she squared the circle with the Irish border is to create something called the backstop. And what the backstop means is that the entire of the UK would remain in the customs union until such a time that there is a solution to the border problem, which could easily be never. And this is why she lost her Brexiteers, because they said, well, this is just a way for us to stay in the European Union, subject to their regulations, indefinitely, because there is no provision for the United Kingdom leaving the backstop unilaterally. So they just saw themselves

as being stuck at the mercy of Europe indefinitely. Well, that's the first time I understood the backstop. Thank you. The fact is that her deal isn't really a deal because what it actually does is postpone everything. It doesn't settle anything. It actually guarantees more uncertainty, which is terrible for business. And it's not even Brexit.

It is not Brexit at all. And they're pretending that it is. So what she begins to do is try to persuade the country to compromise. But it is extremely late in the game. And she hasn't laid the groundwork for a compromise. Much of her energy went to keeping the hardliners on side. And as soon as she published her withdrawal agreement, she lost them. Theresa May still believes there's a battle to be won in Brussels. A growing number of British MPs don't. The view from Europe is of a nation increasingly at odds with itself.

And how does May respond to all these condemnations and men who are essentially beating her up? I mean, this is such an irritating, maddening group of people that, I don't know, a lot of Britons during this period, their heart kind of went out to her because any normal person would just throw their hands up and walk away from this nightmare of a job. But she'd just wake up in the morning and dust herself off and set aside her personal feelings and say, I believe with every fiber of my being that the course I have set out is the right one for our country and all our people. Again and again. From the very beginning, I have known what I wanted to deliver for the British people to honor their vote in the referendum.

I have committed to delivering Brexit to the British people, to honour their vote in the referendum. I have committed to delivering Brexit to the British people. The British people just want us to get on with it. They are looking to the Conservative Party to deliver, to deliver a Brexit that works for the whole UK. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do my job of getting the best deal for Britain. I'm going to do my job of getting a deal that is in the national interest. She stuck with it and she stuck with it and she seemed unwilling to give up.

And am I going to see this through? Yes. Until last week. We'll be right back. So bring us back to this committee room, number 14. What do we know about what Theresa May said as she offered her own head to members of the Conservative Party as this final gesture.

This was the way it was described by George Freeman, who was her former policy advisor. She, with tears not far from her eyes, said, I promised I would deliver the Brexit agreement. She said, I've made many mistakes. I'm only human. I beg you, colleagues, vote for the withdrawal agreement and I will go. He said there was silence in the room and it was incredibly sad. After she finished speaking in this committee room, there were several MPs who were kind of hardline holdout Brexiteers who got up and said publicly that they were now going to back her deal.

Wow. So this seems to be working. Yes. For the next, like, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour, journalists were on Twitter just counting the number of Brexiteers that were changing sides. And you had people like Boris Johnson, who, you know, I think he had compared her deal to a suicide vest at one point. This is what he said to the Daily Telegraph. I feel very, very sorry, and though it fills me with pain, I'm going to have to support this thing. So he flipped sides.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, another kind of Brexiteer bannerman, tweeted out that half a loaf is better than no bread. In other words, he was willing to give up some of his Brexiteer credibility to get behind Theresa May and give her his vote. And you just began to see this happening again and again. They were flipping. And I think it got up to something like 30 or 40 people were indicating that they were changing sides. And it looked somehow that at this last moment, in this last kind of Hail Mary pass that she had thrown, by offering her resignation, she might have just gotten it over the line. Order! Order!

But sometime after 3 o'clock on Friday, March 29th... The ayes to the right, 286. The noes to the left, 344. So the noes have it, the noes have it. Parliament rejected her withdrawal agreement for the third time by a vote of 344 to 286. So she just fell short. Yep, she fell short.

Point of order, the Prime Minister. Point of order, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think it should be a matter of profound regret to every member of this House that once again we have been unable to support leaving the European Union in an orderly fashion. The implications of the House's decision are grave. So this offer to give up her own prime ministership in exchange for Brexit, essentially Parliament said to her, not even that is enough.

It wasn't enough. Good evening from Westminster. If the prime minister had had her way, the United Kingdom would be leaving the EU in one hour's time. Today should have been Brexit day. That's what Theresa May had promised. But instead... And this is the kind of absurd trap that we've all been in, that here's an impossible task that doesn't get done and doesn't get done. And yet nothing changes. There's no off-ramp. And so Brexit still isn't done and Theresa May is still the person in charge of it. I mean, you sort of imagine that she was ready to walk away

and you could see it on her face. She looked like a different person. She looked younger. She looked, I don't know, she just didn't look strained anymore. But actually, she's not free. It's not done. And she's going to have to start all over again in the morning.

Ellen, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Here's what else you need to know today. I've ended payments to Guatemala, to Honduras and to El Salvador. No money goes there anymore. Over the weekend, the Trump administration said it would drastically cut financial aid to three Central American countries in retaliation for what he said

was their failure to stop the flow of migrants to the U.S. border. We were paying them tremendous amounts of money and we're not paying them anymore because they haven't done a thing for us. The $500 million in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras was originally designed to address the root cause of migration. Violence, lack of jobs, and poverty, and its elimination, could ultimately backfire, triggering even more migration to the U.S. And New York will become the first city in the country to charge drivers for using its streets in an attempt to reduce congestion and raise money to repair

its subway system. You have to get fewer cars driving into Manhattan. The traffic is so bad. I can't tell you how many days myself. I just get out of the car and walk because it's so much faster. Under a plan adopted by Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature on Sunday, drivers will be charged a fee of at least $10 to drive below 60th Street in Manhattan.

Buses in Manhattan, I think the average is now down to like four miles per hour. The fees, known as congestion pricing, are already in use in London, Stockholm, and Singapore, where they have cut both traffic and air pollution. In New York, they are expected to raise $1 billion a year for the city's subway system. And it's a little bit of a chicken and an egg. You need a viable, functioning mass transit system so people get out of their cars and feel comfortable taking the mass transit system.

And that's the point behind congestion pricing. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.