Welcome to Number 10

So it is early 2016, and you are a very senior minister in David Cameron’s Conservative administration. You are not one for groupings and cabals within your party, but without being a Machiavellian figure you have an astute grasp of strategy and tactics. The EU referendum campaign is about to begin. You expect the result to be close, with the balance of probability being towards Remain. This expectation of closeness is mirrored in your own thinking. Doctrinally, you lean towards euroscepticism, but your natural instincts are always cautious ones. You can see the potential long-term benefits of becoming independent from the EU, but you are concerned about the shorter-term economic damage (which could become long-term damage) caused by Brexit, to say nothing of the potential danger of a break-up of the United Kingdom.


You are expecting the Prime Minister to stand down before the next General Election is due in 2020, so therefore probably in 2019. However, he would be unlikely to survive a Leave vote in the referendum, so that a vacancy could arise very shortly after the vote. Looking around at the other potential candidates on either side of the referendum divide, you can see sufficient flaws in all of them for you to be a strong contender, even the strongest contender. But how do you position yourself to be successful whatever the referendum result? And how do you stay true to your own beliefs? Or at least true enough to avoid any accusation of opportunism?

You support Remain, so that if Remain wins as expected, you are in the best possible position in 2019 to move smoothly into number 10. Those candidates who declared for Leave, either for reasons of ideology or of opportunism, will be sufficiently damaged by their referendum defeat not to be credible threats. Your main rival on the Remain side, the long-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer, will be tarnished by his economic management record and may not even consider standing against you. On the other hand, if Leave wins, a strong candidate could emerge from their side, strong enough to defeat you because you backed the losing horse. Therefore, your support of Remain needs to be as low-key as possible. Fortunately, since you do not carry an economic brief, you can stay out of the economic arguments. You might be expected to become involved in the immigration area of debate, but you decide to let the Leave side make the running on this issue without noticeably raising your head above the parapet.

You quietly observe the campaign, noting its unedifying nature and carefully avoiding any damage to your own reputation by participation in the scare-mongering and downright lying which will lower still further the nation’s opinion of its politicians. You see that many of those who will vote Leave will do so because they feel marginalised and let down by those who run the country and by the faceless and remote Eurocrats in Brussels. You recognise that there are serious social and geographical divisions in Britain, partly rooted in decades of neglect but partly caused by your own government, and that these divisions are being exacerbated by the referendum. They will also have a major bearing on the result, whichever that will be. You plan your leadership bid in the event of a Leave vote. The probable shortness of the game played under that scenario requires careful preparation. It will not be a time for thinking “on the hoof”. If the result is Remain, then the game will be about three years in the future. There will be time enough later on to prepare for that one.

Now it is the morning of 24 June 2016. Leave has won by a 52-48 margin. The Prime Minister has announced his resignation.

It is time to act swiftly and decisively, but you have prepared meticulously. The country is seriously divided, perhaps more so than had been anticipated. You present yourself as the candidate to unify the country (and the party). You have gained valuable perspective. The key issues facing the country are by no means only the ones relating to the EU. So you signal a change of direction if you become Prime Minister towards a more “one nation” Conservatism. It will take a long time even to achieve partial success in this respect, but the message is convincing and reassuring.

Even so, it is by no means certain that you will win the prize. A Remain candidate could arise to hurt you on that flank, while the Leave campaign is likely to produce a charismatic candidate who will receive support from most of the eurosceptic MPs. If you are up against him when Conservative members vote between the top two candidates, their probable bias towards Leave could result in him defeating you. Knowing that you need to trawl deeply in Brexiteer waters, you say that “Brexit means Brexit”. The referendum result is on your side as you say this. And you have to convince the Leave side that you will not try to backslide on the commitment to leave.

You also want to present yourself as prime ministerial, not merely as a challenger for the role. Therefore you avoid giving any bargaining chips away in advance of the negotiations that are to come with the EU. Although it sounds harsh and causes (still more) uncertainty, you give no guarantees to EU nationals working in the UK, unlike the other candidates who sound populist but not necessarily wise. You know that on the other side of that bargain are the UK nationals living in the EU.

During the campaign, the Leave side has been plagued by internal strife. Now everything works out extraordinarily rapidly to your advantage. One candidate is unexpectedly betrayed by his close colleague, who instead announces that he is standing in his own right. His perceived treachery drastically reduces his support. The first ballot puts you way ahead and removes two candidates from the fray. The second ballot leaves only one opponent still standing. The Leave campaigners are now represented by someone who has never been in the cabinet. Her inexperience is almost immediately demonstrated by a naive interview, and she withdraws. You have won.

Meanwhile, the Labour party is tearing itself apart in a way never seen before, not even in the fractious 1980s. No government in recent times has ever had to deal with such an ineffective Opposition. You should be wise enough to recognise that such a situation is not really to the nation’s benefit, nor is it an unalloyed blessing for the governing party to lose its normal democratic accountability.

It is not the easiest of times to become Prime Minister. Jihadist terrorism and tensions in Eastern Europe pose huge security threats. Economic recovery from the 2008 crash is far from complete and made more precarious by the Brexit vote. The referendum and particularly the conduct of the campaign have stirred up internal tensions. Negotiation with the EU will take place within the two-year period following the invocation of Article 50, and there is no doubt that it will be extremely difficult. The Leave campaign raised expectations which will be hard to satisfy, to say the least. Scotland may well wish to leave the Union. Northern Ireland will gain a land border with the EU, which may give leverage to opportunistic republicans. The Prime Minister’s chalice which you inherit could be as poisoned as any in British history.

You have indicated that the Brexit negotiations will be conducted by the Brexiteers. How very wise to yield so magnanimously to their enthusiasm. Let them be the ones to handle these very difficult negotiations, and let them be the ones who are blamed if (or when) things go wrong. You will also be wise to introduce an element of personal distance from the inevitable discussions which must follow with the Scottish First Minister. It may well be that “Brexit means Brexit” will be sorely tested by the outcomes of these processes and by the economic weather in 2018 and 2019. A General Election then should still be eminently winnable, even after perhaps some substantial restructuring of the other parties. But it might also say a great deal about whether Brexit really does mean Brexit.

As one of your predecessors memorably said, a week is a long time in politics. The three weeks immediately following the referendum have felt like a political century. So even you will find it hard to predict what will happen in the next two or three years.

You are Theresa May.

It is 13 July 2016. From today, you are Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.