Theresa May’s refusal to fully embrace the Brexit cause since becoming Prime Minister has proved to be a fatal mistake for the Government, Brexiteer columnist Melanie Phillips suggested.
The refusal to play the “hardest possible hardball” during the Brexit negotiations has resulted in Theresa May fighting to see her proposed deal survive the criticism of MPs, according to Ms Phillips. The Times columnist insisted Britain had needed a fully-committed Brexiteer to deliver a satisfactory withdrawal from the European Union rather than a Prime Minister trying to unite the will of both Remainers and Brexiteers. The Prime Minister is expected to suffer a humiliating defeat in the Commons next week after failing to secure the support of a majority of members for her Withdrawal Agreement.
Appearing on the first episoe of BBC Question Time of the year, Ms Phillips said: “We should have had, whether you are Remain or not, having had that vote to leave the European Union – it was in the national interest for that negotiations to be conducted by someone from our side playing the hardest possible hardball against those people.
“You needed a proper Brexiteer who wasn’t the kind of Brexiteer who said ‘yes, I believe in observing the mandate of the Brexit referendum and so I want to remain in the customs union,’ which is basically what half of Labour seems to think. We wanted a proper Brexiteer who understood either you are in or out.”
Ms Phillips insisted the EU had fought hard to keep Britain closely aligned to the bloc for fears “a Britain free of the European Union will take them to the cleaners.”
She added: “On my view, they are not delivering Brexit. You look around, as I’m sure many of us have looked around over the last two years and thought ‘for goodness sake, anybody could make a better fist of it than what is going on’.”