Tin eared Theresa and why the cannabis row may finish her premiership

Things are moving fast and there is the possibility – I put it no stronger at this stage – that the Prime Minister could be toppled by despairing senior Tories much sooner than expected.

Several of the required elements are combining to create a Tory DEFCON one crisis.

1. Theresa May is vulnerable on the Brexit meaningful vote question this week. Following a thumping defeat (much bigger than expected) in the Lords this evening, the leadership is nervously trying to work out whether it has the votes in the Commons.

2. A defeat this week by the rebels would completely screw the government’s Brexit negotiating position, confirming to the European Commission that ministers have no leeway to ask for anything in talks. None. Zero. It will be later this year down merely to what the EU deigns to offer. Anything like a no deal scenario, or British robustness, is off the table because parliament will have indicated that it will not allow anything of that kind. The EU clearly thinks it can now get the lot, binding in the UK to a CU and the SM’s rules and even ordering free movement. Are there the votes in the Commons to reject that? That’s barely even the point. It will be that or no deal, the latter which will have been taken off the table by parliament. If MPs do send the signal to Brussels in the next 48 hours, the message is clear: the Commons will force Britain to take what is given.

3. The chances then of a roll the dice moment this month or next instigated by senior MPs or even among senior cabinet minister rise. Why? Despair and desperation about the prospects. Defeat would mean May has lost any remaining control of the process and the main argument – she gets on with it, it might be ok – is dust. The direction will be set for EU victory, the final death of a bespoke solution, and abject national humiliation. Will a cabinet minister grab the moment to try for something better, to reset the talks? Or will they all just sit there letting it happen knowing history will mark them accordingly as dunces? Some of the worst will sit still knowing they would get the sack if May departs. Others must look to their consciences.

4. That is where the cannabis scandal really matters. At the worst possible moment, the Prime Minister has got herself embroiled this week in a disastrous argument with senior members of her cabinet that flags her awful leadership style. She opposes a demand to legalise medicinal cannabis, despite pressure from cabinet members. They are used to May lacking imagination and the ability to respond creatively. But this one is just baffling in human terms. Never criticise May’s record at the Home Office, is a Whitehall mantra for those seeking to keep in with Number 10. Perhaps that explains May’s slow and poor response this time because she takes it as implicit criticism of a policy in place on her watch that has been overtaken by research and events.

When the full behind the scenes story is written of the medicinal cannabis row now raging at Westminster, what it reveals about the Prime Minister and the tin eared way she runs an ailing administration is unlikely to be flattering.

Days ago, even weeks ago, it should have been obvious to the Prime Minister that here was a slow burn subject ready to blow up in the face of ministers. Billy Caldwell ‎is the child who had his medicine – acquired in Canada where it is legal – taken away and then returned after the Home Secretary got involved. The media optics are dire. More importantly, the human aspects of the story are too.

The scene at cabinet today described by The Spectator’s James Forsyth, in which Home Secretary Sajid Javid pleaded in vain for the subject to be discussed and May said it was not on the agenda, looked like one of those subterranean events, a trigger, that spells truly big trouble ahead. All of May’s process-driven weaknesses were on display. It was May defined.

Campaigners have been astonished by the shambolic way the Caldwell case has been handled by the government. In a situation in which a child’s life is at stake, Number 10 has seemed oblivious and worse than ever.

I emphasise again, the Prime Minister may win these votes and in the aftermath the concerns of senior Tories, ministers and MPs, just melt away like ice cream in the summer sun. But for that to happen she’ll need to be very lucky.