Theresa
May's Brexit speech: what the national newspapers say
Roy Greenslade
PM’s
words cause unsurprising joy in pro-leave papers while pro-remain
media question her interpretation of her mandate
The advantage of the
prime minister’s speech being leaked in advance is obvious: two
successive days of adoring front-page headlines for Theresa May.
As far as the Daily
Mail is concerned, Margaret Thatcher has been reborn: “Steel of the
new Iron Lady”. Other headlines on six successive pages reflect its
ecstasy at her decision to quit the single market, renegotiate
customs union membership and dispense with the European court of
justice: “A great nation is reborn”; “Europe split over May’s
vision – but even Tusk calls it ‘realistic’; “Thumbs up from
bosses”.
An op-ed by Dominic
Sandbrook calls the speech daring, decisive and momentous and
compared May favourably to Thatcher. As for the editorial, it praises
an “impressive” May for presenting a vision of Britain “as a
fully independent, global power”.
It continues: “Mrs
May left our partners in no doubt that if they fail to offer the
right terms, she is ready to walk away from the table and out of the
EU with no agreement at all …
“In a subtle yet
undisguised threat, she reminded them gently that a trade war would
jeopardise EU firms’ £500bn investments in Britain. It would also
put at risk millions of European jobs that are dependent on exports
to the UK worth £290bn a year.”
No, I agree, not
really much of a surprise. The Brexit-campaigning Mail has been May’s
greatest supporter from the moment she emerged as the woman most
likely to succeed David Cameron.
As unsurprising is
the joy evident from the coverage in the Sun (with a punning front
page headline, “Brexodus”, on a mocked-up tablet of stone), the
Daily Express (“Deal or no deal we will leave the EU”) and the
Daily Telegraph (“May’s bold terms for Brexit”).
In its editorial,
the Sun says May’s Brexit vision “is so close to ours we couldn’t
have written it any better. It was a magnificent, historic speech –
a game-changer for Britain and for Brussels”.
It calls her speech
“hugely ambitious, optimistic and crafted to appeal to every
level-headed person in Britain”. As for EU members “she was
commendably steely in urging them to focus on the potential gains for
both sides, not on ‘punishing’ Britain”.
But the Sun has “two
reservations”. It is worried about possible drift during the
transitional period between the day Britain leaves and new deals
taking effect. And it is troubled by the fact that parliament will
get a final vote.
Why? Because “it
provides a focal point for two more grim years of divisive
campaigning by diehard Remainers still hoping to turn back the
clock”.
The Telegraph, which
carries an op-ed by Boris Johnson heaping praise upon his leader,
joins in the adulation. It was an “excellent speech” offering a
“clear sense of direction; this was real leadership, of the sort we
see all too rarely.
“It is no
exaggeration to describe this speech as a defining moment in British
politics, one that will one day be remembered in the same light as
Lady Thatcher’s famous Bruges address, which launched the modern
Eurosceptic movement.”
According to the
paper, “we will remain a pro-immigration society but will choose
who we want to move here … a masterclass in common sense and is
exactly what Britain voted for last June”.
It is particularly
pleased at the “steel behind her words: Britain can be a good
friend to the EU, or a bad enemy. And the EU today needs all the
friends it can get”.
And it concludes:
“The prime minister is doing what Britain wants, and doing it
boldly. She deserves to succeed.”
The Telegraph
columnist Philip Johnston also praises the speech, arguing that it
lived up to its advance billing of being “major” and
“groundbreaking”.
Stephen Pollard, in
the Express, sees it in similar terms, “as the most important
single speech by any British politician in my lifetime”.
In an adjacent
leader, the Express reminds readers that “this newspaper began its
crusade to get Britain out of the EU more than six years ago”.
Now, “at last, we
have a prime minister who … understands the importance of
delivering a real Brexit”.
The caption to the
Times’s front-page picture of May striding into Lancaster House
informs its readers that she is wearing “a £1,190 Vivienne
Westwood suit”. Is that relevant?
As for the speech,
its assessment is more measured. Impressed by how she “pulled off
the trick of sounding both conciliatory and menacing”, it sees it
as clever, nuanced “and arguably a fine one”.
It believes that May
will have silenced those who said she did not know what she was doing
and that her remarks “were meant chiefly to reassure critics at
home that after six months with no running commentary she has a
plan”.
The Times notes how
the “shrewd advance briefing” of key sections of her speech
“meant that any anxiety in the financial markets had been factored
into the price of sterling” before she spoke.
It concludes by
referring to an unnamed City trader who had welcomed the speech as
“less hawkish” than expected: “This is an accolade that would
have been hard to imagine last summer. Mrs May has deftly moved the
goalposts to give herself the option of the hardest of hard Brexits.”
Then there are those
titles that backed remain and are now doubtful about the government’s
interpretation of its mandate following the referendum vote.
The Guardian thinks
the speech “doubly depressing” and “riddled with its own streak
of global fantasy”. It was, says the paper, “a reminder that
Britain’s exit from the EU puts livelihoods, values and alliances
at risk”.
May’s approach was
influenced by her “conviction that the people voted for Brexit to
control EU migration” and that “the Conservative party’s
anti-European MPs are politically stronger, and thus more of a
destabilising threat to her premiership, than the party’s
pro-Europeans”.
Moreover, it was
also “designed in equal parts to pander to the xenophobic press,
and to keep backbench Brexiteers firmly on side”.
So, says the
Guardian, “as a political manoeuvre” it “was a huge success”
and will have strengthened her authority both in her party and in the
country.
As for her saying
that no deal would be better than a bad deal, the paper believes it
to be “a bluff” which “may backfire at the negotiating table”.
Rafael Behr, writing
in the Guardian, contends that May’s speech “was meant to be a
beacon illuminating Britain’s future outside the EU. But, coming
days before Trump’s inauguration, it should be read also as an
unwitting requiem for the global order that is passing away”.
The Independent’s
leader is unequivocally hostile to May’s speech, seeing her message
as “extremely unwelcome” by offering a “damaging and
undemocratic” Brexit.
It continues: “The
terms she is talking about were not promised by the leave campaign in
the referendum.”
Although May has
agreed to obtain the consent of parliament to the eventual terms of
exit, “the option to remain within the EU will not be on the table.
For parliament and people, that is unacceptable.”
“She should, of
course, have pledged a referendum for the whole of the British people
on such a momentous move … it is more certain than ever that she is
leading the country and her party into a certainly disastrous
economic future – and will ignore the popular will.”
The Daily Mirror,
ever aware of its readership being more anti-EU than its own
long-held EU enthusiasm, is cautious. It says May “must be held to
account closely as she initiates a tricky exit that will determine
our country’s prosperity for generations to come”.
It wonders whether
controlling migration from the EU, “which many people [meaning its
readers] demand”, could prove counterproductive.
“Everybody wants
to approach the future positively,” says the Mirror, “and it is
in all our interests that a good deal is reached with other nations.”
And finally, let me
mention a couple of half-decent headline puns in two free titles:
“Don’t call me May be” (Metro) and “It’s May way or the
highway” (City AM).
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