MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Tough week for Theresa May: convince public opinion and reunite divided Tories

The four-day gathering got underway in Birmingham on Sunday, with Ms May's speech scheduled for the final day

Tough week ahead for British Prime Minister Theresa May who is attending the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham and needs to send a reassurance message to the nation and reunite a deeply divided party.

 The four-day gathering got underway in Birmingham on Sunday, with Ms May's speech scheduled for the final day. On the sidelines, the likes of the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson have been actively working against her.

Mr. Johnson used a newspaper interview to declare Theresa May's plan to exit the EU as “deranged”. And with just six months to go before Britain departs the European Union, Mrs. May's so-called Chequers plan is in tatters, and she will have to work hard to convince the party faithful otherwise.

The Chequers plan was backed by Cabinet, but rejected by the EU.

The white paper would see Britain continue to have some close ties to the EU, including a “common rulebook” for all goods (but not services) traded with the EU, and a combined customs territory to enable the easy trade of goods between the EU and the UK.

It would end the free movement of people but still allow citizens to continue to work and study in respective countries.

Chequer also states that there would be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which will still be in the EU.

But in a damaging and humiliating blow for Mrs May, European leaders rejected the plan during a meeting in the Austrian city of Salzburg a fortnight ago. That meeting was widely dubbed an ambush, and it left the Prime Minister further bruised.

She hit back, accusing the bloc leaders of creating an impasse and demanding her Government be treated with respect.
It is expected her conference speech on October 3 will be similarly combative.

The Labour opposition also rejected the Chequers deal at its party conference in Liverpool last week and some members of the Conservative Party have said they will vote against it if it is brought to the Parliament. Ms May has argued the Chequers deal is the only credible plan on the table, but says no deal at all is better than a bad deal.

A no-deal scenario would see the UK leave the EU on March 29 next year with no agreement in place.

Jill Rutter, the program director for Brexit at the Institute for Government, said this would be one of the worst situations for the country. “The worst-case scenario is that things drag on, and it becomes very clear very late in day that we aren't going to be able to reach a deal,” Ms Rutter said. “That's the real nightmare scenario.”

It is a possibility for Ms May to announce she will proceed with a no-deal option, giving the nation time to prepare for the consequences, which could include temporary food shortages.

But if that's not decided ahead of time and negotiations break down at the last minute, the UK could crash out of the union, which businesses have warned against.

Theresa May's leadership is safe for now because staunch Brexiteers who have argued the Prime Minister's plan ties the UK too closely to EU rules and regulations don't have the numbers to successfully bring a no-confidence motion against her.

Matt Bevington, from the research initiative The UK In A Changing Europe, said he believed this would be Ms May's last conference as leader and that she will be under intense pressure.

“The conference is probably going to be another step towards the undermining of her leadership,” Mr Bevington said.

“Boris Johnson will be manoeuvring but don't think anything will be particularly decided at conference, but it may well be her last conference.”