The importance of appearing in control and how not to do it

In the space of less than 24 hours we had 2 of the most unique, important and interesting votes that the House of Commons will ever give us. Most would argue that we have had enough drama of the sort we have seen to last us for a long time. Unfortunately, those votes and the debates and issues supporting them appear to really only be at the end of the beginning, not even close to the beginning of the end. The ongoing saga of Brexit has now dragged on for over two and a half years since the referendum itself. Legally speaking, as it stands, we only have around 10 weeks left to organise a withdrawal deal, or we crash out with No Deal.

            Nobody knows how this is going to turn out. Nobody knows, with absolute certainty, what is the best result for the UK and the EU. We can all choose to believe whichever experts, anti-experts or shaman most suits our views. Generally, that is what the overwhelming majority of use have been doing. My view, and one I want to explain, is that the biggest gap we have faced throughout the process has been the gap in genuine leadership – none more so than from the party leaders themselves.

            There are hundreds of lists of leadership qualities, and books have been written about the subject since we started recording history. I want to focus on a few of those qualities that appear across a wide range of them – it’s impossible to find some that appear in all of them. The most regularly repeating qualities for effective achieving leaders appear to be:

• ·      Integrity – not just being honest, but being seen to be honest, and doing the right thing even when you can get away with doing the wrong thing
• ·      Courage – in making decisions, even unpopular ones, with limited information, and willing to address difficult points
• ·      Impartiality and fairness – not pandering to special or favourite causes, identifying the fairest outcome for everyone from a situation
• ·      Good communication – in both directions, able to explain their message so others get it with clarity and conviction, and able to listen to others and hear their points
• ·      Flexibility and responsiveness – able to alter not only their plans and direction, but their style to achieve their outcome, and able to listen to other people’s ideas and use the best one, not simply their own

If we start by looking at how the negotiations process has been operated by Theresa May, and the strategy taken to those negotiations, it becomes very clear very quickly why she is not the right leader for the country. And most certainly not at this point in our history. Look at the strategy she has taken and it crumbles very quickly.

First of all, from the outset the decisions and approach have been her decisions and approach. She ignored every opportunity to reach out to other parties. She refused to listen to ideas from anyone outside her immediate circle. Throughout her career there are countless examples that point to her need to be completely in control. It is a unifying thread that runs like iron through it. How can you be impartial and fair if you are always right? Where is the space for responding to other ideas if you wont even hear them? This political change was the biggest we faced for at least 40 years – and arguably since the Second World War. Why not put in place a specialist commission? A government of unity? Citizen’s panels? No – Theresa knows what is best. Much better for her to go away, decide and then come and tell US what is right.

Of course she realised very early on in the process that in order for her to get away with that as Prime Minister, she needed to have as much personal power and mandate as possible. So whilst we had a backdrop of a clock running down, she called a General Election. Not for the good of the country, not for the good of the negotiations, not even for the good of her party. For her own benefit. And all after explicitly ruling out the idea. Because she believed she would win a landslide. Where is the integrity in that decision? Where is the impartiality and fairness of putting her wants in front of our country’s needs?

During the election itself, she showed herself again and again to have no communication skills. Strong and stable can not be the answer to every question. I imagine during that period if asked her how she took her coffee she would answer “strong and stable”. She ran scared of taking part in debates – sending other people to do them. Because she has all the communication skills and warmth of Buck Rogers friend Twiki, but without the warmth. Or communication skills. Where is the courage in being afraid to stand up without all of your lines safely locked down – taking no risks.

Having refused to talk to other parties, setting out her way of doing it as the only way, and having been embarrassed in a general election because she didn’t realise that the public didn’t want one, she then found herself weakened. The hung parliament that she caused meant that she then had to sell out some of her power to the DUP. This was at the cost of £1bn+ and additional red-lines. She used public money to protect her own position. She reduced her flexibility further.

Whilst all this carried on, Brexit Secretaries and other ministers led a constant stream out of her government because she wouldn’t listen to anyone else, and she kept coming back to the UK having given away more and more negotiating strength. Because she was right, and how dare anybody question or challenge her. She had to survive – she was the only one who was right. The single most important point, throughout this process, has been the survival of Theresa May. On average we have lost a government minister every month since she became Prime Minister. Nobody knew what the current deal was, until she deigned to tell us. No communication, no flexibility.

Where did this lead us? Her own party realised this couldn’t continue – and she survived a confident vote there. 117 of her own MPs – one third of her parliamentary party – wanted her to go. Did this change her approach or make her consider her position? Not for a minute. She not only led her government to be in contempt of parliament (for the first time ever), but she ran down the clock by delaying the vote on her deal. Not for any purpose other than she didn’t want to hear the truth – that she had gotten it completely wrong but couldn’t bear to hear it. She suffered the biggest governmental defeat in history. Only one third of parliament supported her deal – not even the £1bn bung could persuade the DUP. Did this make her consider her position? Not for a moment.

On the back of this she faced a vote of no-confidence in parliament. And I want to return to that point in part 2 of this blog – because we also need to consider the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn in doing that.