TELEGRAPH VIEW
30 SEPTEMBER 2016 • 6:44PM
Theresa May delivers a speech at the British Academy, on September 9, where she said that a new wave of grammar schools will end "selection by house price" and give every child the chance to go to a good school. CREDIT: 2016 GETTY IMAGES
Theresa May opens the Tory conference tomorrow – a conference that presents her first real chance to define her premiership and detail her admirably radical agenda. First, however, she has some prior business to take care of. Mrs May probably does not want to be defined solely by Brexit, but she does need to give significant indications as to how she sees Britain’s future relationship with Europe when it comes to trade and immigration. Make that clear at the start of the conference and she can then focus attention on her personal philosophy – and how it relates to tackling Britain’s many domestic challenges.
Too few voters are saving money for their retirement. Too few are getting on the housing ladder.
Some nonsense is being spoken about the EU negotiations, particularly the suggestion that there is a diametric choice to be made between a hard or soft Brexit. What is sometimes called soft is barely Brexit at all; what is sometimes called hard is a mix of proposals that are either logical or so radical that they are not even on the table. But saying that Brexit will mean Brexit is clearly not good enough. Enigma won’t satisfy the public; business needs to know what it has to look forward to. Nissan, for instance, has suspended new investment in Sunderland while it awaits the outcome of Brexit talks – and warns against allowing tariffs to be placed on its products.
So Mrs May will have to use her opening address on Sunday afternoon to lay out goals even if she cannot go into specifics. Those goals are interrelated. Many Leave voters expect immigration to be controlled, which means ending free movement. If free movement goes then it is highly likely that membership of the single market will be challenged by other EU members. Membership of the customs union must surely be rejected by the UK. And if Britain is to decouple from the EU then it must be ready to go straight out into the world and negotiate new free trade arrangements. This the country is well placed to do. Several nations have indicated that they want to strike deals; some have even offered to lend Britain the negotiators it lacks after decades of Brussels being in charge.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/09/30/a-defining-challenge-for-theresa-may/
