It all ended in tears when Theresa May announced her resignation from premiership on May 24, 2019. The Conservative Party elected a new leader, and May left Downing Street on July 24, leaving the door wide open for suits and ties to return to Number 10.
Enter Boris Johnson.
The former mayor of London walked in, tried to bypass parliament, won an election by a landslide, got Brexit done, and all’s well for him until the ever-powerful public eye gradually shifted to the backbenches. They find a familiar face there, sitting alone in the now-socially distanced House of Commons, listening intently to the front-bench. She voices their concerns, directs pointed questions at Johnson, and keeps the government on its toes.
Contrary to the often robotic woman they’d seen as prime minister, there is a new zeal in her. She had left in tears but was now returning with fire. The reason? She’s not happy with the way things are, and she’s finally found the place she belongs to the most.
As Theresa May moved from being a discredited prime minister to being an MP for Maidenhead, she assumed a role which no prime minister since Edward Heath has had — being the Tory rebel leader. She has not flinched in her criticisms of Boris Johnson since Rishi Sunak presented his first budget in March last year, and these criticisms continue even today as she attacks the government’s mishandling of travel restrictions.
May and Johnson have had a complicated relationship for quite some time now. In 2016, May defeated Johnson and others to become leader of a deeply divided Conservative Party, whose one flank took the moderate stance to Brexit while the other, led by Johnson, took a far-right stance. May tried to bridge the gap by taking a centrist stance, keeping her enemies close by naming Johnson foreign minister, and trying to solve the Northern Ireland impasse.
It was to no avail.
May’s first Brexit deal lost by a total of 230 votes, the biggest defeat of an incumbent government in modern parliamentary history. Then Johnson resigned as foreign secretary in 2018 over May’s handling of the EU Customs Union, and divisions in the Tory Party worsened. With no consensus, no support, and no deal, May was forced to resign in 2019 to let Johnson become prime minister. May retired to the backbenches with what was left of her dilapidated legacy.
While it is customary for most prime ministers to take a break after their resignations, May broke with tradition. Most expected her to retire to the countryside. Johnson certainly did not want her to stay on the front covers of the Daily Telegraph, known for its Tory biases, for attacking the government on coronavirus policy. The latter was the path she would choose.
She has found her tongue and her true place in the backbenches, and the idea that her significance has faded out turned out to be misconceived. For instance, when May challenged Johnson’s appointment of his political ally David Frost as his National Security Advisor to replace the decorated Sir Mark Sedwill, she did not mince words in asking him why his advisor was a political appointee. When Michael Gove — Johnson’s Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster — tried to reason that not all NSAs have been steeped in the national security world, she was seen vehemently shaking her head on the backbenches, conveying her dismay.
This enthusiasm that May showed was new. There was a time when most newspapers would spend pages calling her the “Maybot”, because of her insistence on using the same, often blank, slogans repeatedly (“Brexit means Brexit” and “strong and stable leadership”). But this vehement denial of the government’s decision by her was seen as a rather welcome intervention and proof of the fact that this was a changed woman the nation was seeing on the backbenches.
In foreign policy, Johnson’s absolutism clashed with May’s compromise — Johnson’s disdain for cooperation and collaboration is clear, while May’s emphasis on the significance of compromise has only grown. May, who often said that a “global Britain” is something the nation should vie for, attacked Johnson for giving no “thought to the long-term impact on the standing of the UK in the world” when he tried to pass the Internal Markets Bill in 2020, a bill that many officers of the government conceded would be in contravention of international law. In a scathing critique of Johnson’s foreign policy, May accused Johnson of abandoning “global moral leadership.” Writing in the Daily Mail, she proclaimed “we are sliding towards absolutism in international affairs … Compromise is seen as a dirty word.”
Johnson’s plan to cut down the foreign aid target by 42% — which could leave as many as 100,000 refugees in Cox’s Bazar without water — invited scrutiny from May who said that Johnson’s government had “turned its back on some of the poorest in the world.” His plan was to cut down foreign aid spending from 0.7% of the national income to 0.5%, which amounts to about 4 billion pounds, in an effort to save a weakening economy. May joined 30 well known Conservative backbenchers in an attempt to block Johnson’s aid cuts, a surprising action which Downing Street had not anticipated. The Tory rebels confident that they had the votes to amend Johnson’s bill faced off with a prime minister scampering for means to block the vote.
May spent a lot of time at the well-famed negotiating table, which is glorified internationally but is nothing short of a metaphor in Westminster. The real action there happens in the hallways, the elevators and the staircases — unlike Johnson, May couldn’t keep up with that. May’s awkwardness and her introverted persona did not impress her colleagues who wanted a figure they could look up to. The result was a never-ending flurry of resignations and, towards the end, a desperate prime minister merely clinging to power. Her passion for compromise and deliberation is often dogged and in modern politics, anachronistic.
When May returned to the backbenches for the first time in 21 years, it seemed to be a rather pleasant experience. This was the place to forge bonds and to listen and there was no pressure to be sharp or tough — one could go so far as to say that there was no scrutiny. And when Johnson’s charade began to fall apart May struck almost instantaneously.
On post Brexit security, she asked Gove if British police systems would be allowed to access EU intelligence after Brexit. In response, Gove insinuated that somehow UK systems would be more efficient outside EU regulation to which May reacted with utter surprise, exclaiming “What!” and “utter rubbish!” These expressions are significant in Westminster, especially when it involves someone with the experience and authority of a former prime minister.
May’s process of finding her voice is an exercise that can easily be deemed good for democracy. When Johnson gained power after the 2019 election, he had almost virtually unchecked power, which is never good in the hands of any leader. Despite Johnson’s commanding majority and the apparent unified control he has over the party, May stands to remind us that his control is not absolute, and that in the face of populism and demagoguery powerful debate and dissent can keep a democracy roaring and alive. The voice she has found in her new position has often forced the government into deliberation and compromise — processes healthy for a striving democracy — thereby breaking the charade of absolutism Johnson seems to enjoy.
When May resigned in 2019, in her last prime minister’s questions, she promised that this time around she looked forward to asking the questions. She seems to be giving no indications to back down on that promise.
Image Credit: “PM Boris Johnson’s Statement to the House of Commons 19/10/2019” by UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
