We had heard a great deal of Theresa May’s Brexit speech to the Conservative party conference before – to the word, in fact, with the Prime Minister using the same scripted soundbites that she’s deployed as a shield against having to answer questions about Brexit directly. ‘We will not be able to give a running commentary or a blow-by-blow account of the negotiations,’ she told the hall, warning that ‘history is littered with negotiations that failed when the interlocutors predicted the outcome in detail and in advance’. It was difficult not to think of the most recent negotiation where this has happened: David Cameron’s attempt to change Britain’s relationship with Brussels and keep the country in the EU.
May rejected talk of the difference between a ‘soft and a hard Brexit’, saying ‘too many people are letting their thinking about our future relationship with the EU be defined by the way the relationship has worked in the past’.
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