(Times paywall) After admitting her election errors, the PM must soften her Brexit stance and build bridges
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/now-may-should-say-sorry-to-our-eu-friends-cnlkwp3sp
Theresa May has clung on to her faltering premiership by apologising profusely to her MPs and her cabinet.
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May has done this to give herself a future.
Now, for the sake of all our futures, it is imperative that she performs the same mea culpa to Europe.
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May’s attitude to the EU has mirrored her stance here.
Over the past year she has been glacial, disdainful, combative, rude and delusional.
She has utterly failed to recognise political realities;
the terrifying complexity of withdrawing from the EU,
the truth that our economy needs the EU far more than they need us;
the bleak consequences if we crash out without a deal,
the fact that the closer we get to the end of negotiations the weaker we are and the stronger the other side is.
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Europe knows exactly how few cards we have to play.
And if May’s position was weak a month ago, it is infinitely weaker now.
One eighth of the time on the Brexit clock has already been wasted
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She has no mandate from the public for her hard Brexit
and no majority in parliament for anything.
She is being forced to listen to voices such as Ruth Davidson and Philip Hammond, who want a softer deal, possibly staying in the customs union,
because nothing harder can now get through the Commons and the Lords.
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May is at the mercy of the people we’ve been treating with contempt.
She can only avert disaster by creating goodwill, so will have to admit her faults, change her style and rapidly start building the alliances she has neglected up to now.
One diplomat told me that our European allies, full of schadenfreude, are mercilessly calculating whether it’s worth paying any attention to May.
“Diplomacy is a brutal business. Ambassadors will be reporting back on whether she has any traction among MPs.
It’s a crude question:
‘Is this woman really in charge of anything or is she on her way out?’”
Diplomats point out that in delicate times diplomacy is not about public posturing but off-the-record conversations,
the private floating of possibilities, creation of relationships and trust.
May, shy and wooden as she is, has done none of that.
We cannot go on like this.
We are becoming an intense irritation to a Europe that has existential challenges to deal with: the threat that Putin might invade, Islamic State, migration, the unreliability of Trump.
One insider says flatly that
“we do have to completely change the temperature in the room.
There may be a brief window of opportunity here but Europe’s mood is hard, and hardening.
They’re fed up with the tone-deafness of May’s team, and they have the whip hand.”
Success in this has never mattered more because May’s electoral implosion has ended her commitment to austerity.
Voters want her to spend again, yet any kind of Brexit will shrink the economy.
There can be no more insouciant references to a few hard years as a price worth paying.
The alternatives, for May, her party and for all of us, are dreadful.
A former ambassador warns of what will happen if she doesn’t raise her sights.
“It’s going to get very bitter and twisted over the next 18 months, and she’ll need a pool of good faith.
She has to understand that it’s up to her, because
Europe’s view is:
‘If they want to drive themselves off a cliff, they’re going to find it bloody cold at the bottom.”’