James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theresa May lifts her party’s spirits – but it won’t last long

Theresa May delivered one of her best conference speeches. In normal times, the political boost she’d get from this would carry her through to Christmas. But these are not normal times—and Brexit will soon reassert itself. There’s a European Council in two weeks time and that will soon dominate everything else.

The speech was authentically Theresa May. She cast herself as a centre ground politician, keen on civility and motivated by the national interest. She emphasised how much of a break from the Labour tradition Jeremy Corbyn was, to try and persuade voters that a Corbyn government would be very different from a typical Labour government. On Brexit, she said little new—don’t read too much into her not using the word Chequers as what she was talking about was Chequers, Number 10 just know that this label is no longer helpful with a Tory audience.

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