Theresa stakes it all on a single throw of the dice

JUST after 6.30pm on Tuesday, the small group of Conservative MPs who constitute Theresa May’s core campaign team filed into Committee Room U in Parliament’s Portcullis House annex. They were upbeat, having just seen their candidate top the first round leadership ballot with 165 votes, almost 100 votes ahead of her nearest challenger, Andrea Leadsom. But as one MP says: ‘We had no time to savour the result’.

For good reason. They were about to make a decision that will shape the future of the United Kingdom for the rest of this century.

Though momentous, it was a relatively straightforward choice. Having just seen Liam Fox get knocked out of the contest, and with Stephen Crabb poised to be eliminated in the next round, they had to decide whether to urge a proportion of their supporters to vote for Michael Gove – thereby preventing Leadsom making the final shortlist – or simply sit back, let Leadsom become the main challenger, and trust that her populist, strongly pro-Brexit pitch could be defeated among Tory grassroots.

Gavin Williamson, parliamentary private secretary to David Cameron, and a senior member of the May team, spoke first, according to one MP who was present.

‘Gavin was adamant. He said, “We need to keep this simple. As soon as we start playing silly games we’re going to find ourselves ending up in a Jeremy Corbyn situation.”’ By that he meant a repeat of the catastrophic schism between the parliamentary party and activists that has torn Labour apart.

After Williamson spoke, there were a few interventions focusing on the state of the contest. Some people believed Leadsom was already being weakened by increasing scrutiny of her CV. Others were concerned that if Gove became the main challenger, the entire apparatus from the victorious Vote Leave campaign could swing behind his candidacy UT the decisive argument was made – in absentia – by Theresa May herself. ‘Theresa had been clear before the first ballot,’ says a supporter, ‘that if people want Theresa May they have to vote for Theresa May. That has to be our message.’

The die was cast. There would be no deals. May and Leadsom would face off in a duel for the highest office in the land.

Since Tuesday, there have been mutterings from the Leadsom camp of skulduggery within the alcoves of Westminster. They have pointed to a text sent by Gove’s campaign manager, Nick Boles, to 15 of May’s supporters, urging them to vote tactically to block Leadsom.

But as May’s allies point out, this is actually proof that attempts by Team Gove to broker a deal had been rebuffed. ‘Gove’s people approached us offering a pact,’ says one. ‘They said, “Michael’s prepared to sacrifice himself to keep Andrea off the ballot.” But we’d just seen what he’d done to Boris Johnson. We didn’t need a cuckoo in the nest.’

A second conspiracy theory concerns the role of Chancellor George Osborne. At the US Ambassador’s July 4 summer party, an adviser to Osborne was overheard boasting that he had been responsible for ‘convincing Michael to strap on the suicide vest’ and end Boris’s leadership hopes.

But Osborne is known to have personally warned friends against trying to interfere in the contest. ‘When George ran Cameron’s leadership campaign, they were faced with a similar situation,’ says one. ‘Should they knock out David Davis and let Liam Fox on to the final ballot? In the end they agreed it was too risky. You never know what’s going to happen, and if you get caught out it can rebound massively on you.’

So the race to appoint David Cameron’s successor begins with the campaign framed in a way both candidates will be content with. Leadsom’s strategy is clear: present herself as a blue in tooth and claw Brexiteer, and appeal directly to the 60 per cent of Conservative supporters who voted for Leave.

She will also attempt to portray herself as the outsider, tapping into the mood of political insurgency she believes was unleashed on June 23. And as the row over her comments on motherhood have demonstrated, she is preparing to run the ‘Donald Trump playbook’ – deploying controversial statements that may offend the Westminster establishment but will generate media coverage and find resonance among elements of the wider Tory family. In contrast, May believes there is genuine concern in the country. following the shock decision to leave the EU, and that what people are looking for is a message of stability and security, rather than melodrama and controversy.

She also feels that her record running one of the major offices of state will withstand comparison alongside the tracked changes currently littering Leadsom’s curriculum vitae. And crucially, she thinks Leadsom has made a serious strategic blunder in attempting to turn the Tory leadership election into a rerun of the referendum campaign.

It has been reported that our Home Secretary regards herself as the ‘unity candidate’ – but she is setting her sights much higher than that. May believes she has an historic opportunity to finally bring to an end the Tory Party’s 40-year civil war over Europe.

Each of the last three Conserva- tive prime ministers has been destroyed by divisions over Europe. So her goal is not an armistice, but a permanent peace.

May’s ceasefire plan is multilayered. First of all, she believes Leadsom is not the Leave candidate but the Leave.EU candidate – a figurehead for that small but vocal rump of the Brexit camp represented by Nigel Farage and Ukip.

As May’s supporters point out, every senior member of the official Vote Leave campaign has joined her team. And she thinks this will enable her to bridge the divide between two hitherto irreconcilable wings of her party.

Paradoxically, she also thinks her decision to back the Remain camp can be turned to her advantage. As Boris Johnson’s eleventh hour conversion to Euroscepticism demonstrated, the smart political move for those with leadership ambitions was widely perceived to be to back Brexit. Some of May’s most senior aides urged her to do so, yet she rejected the opportunity to ‘pivot’ and curry favour with Tory activists. Now her decision to dig in her kitten heels has been rewarded.

She also thinks the new political landscape presents her with an opportunity to do what she does best – demonstrating strong, decisive leadership. A friend says: ‘Theresa’s line on the Brexit negotiations is going to be simple: “If I’d been in charge earlier, I would have got us the deal we needed.”

‘Everyone now recognises Cameron didn’t do a good job. He didn’t fight his corner. Angela Merkel faced him down on free movement, and he just took what he was given. Theresa wouldn’t have done that. If that’s what she’d been offered, she would have walked away.’

It’s a compelling pitch. And if the polls are to be believed, a decisive one. But we are now living through a period where the only certainty is uncertainty. And while that fateful decision to allow Leadsom on to the final ballot was an honourable one, it still represents the biggest gamble of May’s political life.

Sitting in Committee Room 8 of the House of Commons, listening to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, reading out the results in his wonderfully understated way, I found myself thinking of that scene from Star Wars where Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader watch the Millennium Falcon soaring off into hyperspace. On board is the tracking device that will lead them to the location of the rebel base. But so are the secret plans to the Death Star, which could potentially lead to its destruction.

‘I’m taking an awful risk,’ says Tarkin. ‘This had better work.’

Theresa May has taken an awful risk. For her sake, and the sake of her party, it had better work.

A duel with Leadsom will be her biggest ever gamble