Everything depends on how her successor does now
This article was written on the day Mrs May announced she would be leaving office in July.
Theresa May’s premiership has ended in failure. Nobody can seriously argue with this conclusion however well disposed they are to her. No historian, however revisionist, is likely to revise that.
She set herself the task of delivering Brexit smoothly and on time and she hasn’t. She committed herself to an ambitious attempt to take the problems of those just about managing and she hasn’t been able to make much headway. She sees herself as someone who profoundly understands the Conservative Party, yet she has been deserted by its members and its voters.
Much more open to debate will be the reasons for that failure. There are two broad and conflicting accounts.
The first is damning. She was in above her head. Elected because all the more suitable candidates eliminated themselves, she never had quite what it takes to be prime minister.
Extremely reserved, what some people interpreted as a tough-minded self-discipline was in fact a crippling lack of self-belief. As a result she was dominated by her own political advisers and incapable of building strong relations with her parliamentary colleagues. It was impossible to know what, or even if, she was thinking.
She became, by default, the choice of everyone as leader and that quickly turned into being the leader of no one. Her decision to dispose of George Osborne and announce that Brexit meant Brexit cut her off from her more natural supporters in the centre and left of the party. Yet she couldn’t see that the right would never trust her. She ended politically friendless and that was her fault.
Having promised MPs she would not call an election she then called one and more or less lost it. MPs would have forgiven the first of these let-downs if it hadn’t been for the more-or-less-lost-it bit.
The election setback was entirely her fault, the result of wooden performances and a disastrous manifesto that she approved.
The moment she lost her majority it was obvious that any deal she struck with the EU would have a hard time getting through Parliament. Yet for two long years she ploughed ahead without regard to how to assemble a majority for any deal either in the Commons or outside.
And every day she showed her greatest failing – a total lack of political imagination. The cunning of a Wilson, the emotional appeal of a Blair, it was all beyond her. So she kept on keeping on until keeping on became impossible. And then she stopped.
There is, however, a more generous assessment that could be made.
Like any politician Mrs May has weaknesses as well as strengths. She certainly keeps her views to herself, while not cold she is undoubtedly shy and while not friendless she lacks a following of her own.
Yet being self-contained and letting others do the talking can be a big advantage in politics. It’s absurd to suggest that she became prime minister by accident. Nobody becomes prime minister by accident. Staying above faction and maintaining extraordinary self-discipline are political skills. She demonstrated these skills while others did not. That’s why she reached No. 10.
While it is easy now to argue that she should not have announced red lines and shouldn’t have said that Brexit meant Brexit what other alternative was there? There wasn’t any other tenable response to the referendum result, certainly not for a Tory leader.
And calling the election was a smart move. Everyone agreed that at the time. In fact, it is the answer to those who accuse Mrs May of being incapable of creativity and surprise and incapable of assessing her own position realistically. She saw that she needed a bigger majority and struck out boldly to get one.
Not even a generous account, not even her own account, will be able to describe her election performance as a triumph. But she managed to stay on the horse, while other riders would have come off.
In that period she has shown three characteristics of leadership that are highly praiseworthy. She has been realistic, adapting her plans to accommodate European and parliamentary realities. She has been tough, keeping on going even when the problems seem overwhelming and the job thankless. And she has shown a sense of duty, being willing to endure humiliation and attack to do what she feels is the right thing for the country.
Yes, it has ended in failure. But that is because the country is deeply split, her party is deeply split and the parliamentary situation deteriorated from forbiddingly difficult to completely impossible. Relentlessness, her chosen political weapon, did not work in the end, but it wasn’t a stupid choice.
So which of these accounts will ultimately dominate what is said about Theresa May by historians? It all depends on how her successors fare.
The Tory party is almost certainly going to test the idea that there was an alternative to Mrs May’s approach. Rally Leave voters and Conservative MPs, seek a new deal from the EU and use a genuine determination to leave with no deal as a way of wringing concessions on the issue of the backstop.
If this fails, challenge Parliament to accept no deal and hold an election if they baulk. Pit a no-deal Conservative Party against a Labour Party offering a second referendum.
Should this fail, or should her successor stumble while trying it, Theresa May’s own failings may seem more understandable and the judgment of them might be less harsh. Similarly should Remainers force a second referendum and lose it, they may repent of the decision not to have accepted the deal she negotiated. And her own resistance to the idea may look more sage than stubborn.
The May premiership is not a period in the political history of Britain that very many people will look back on with great affection. It has been a period of stalemate and frustration and division. But it’s too early to be sure what the judgment will be of her own role in this. Was it her fault? Or did she do her best in very trying circumstances?