Theresa May admitted the election result is “not the one [she] hoped for” in her introduction to this year's Queen's Speech.
This, plus the disappearance of key, controversial manifesto pledges, revealed May is well aware of her weak position.
In a brief speech outside Downing Street the morning after the general election, May appealed to the EU referendum result, rather than the election result, as justification for her mandate going forward. Her party—which failed to achieve a majority—barely figured as she vowed to continue as Prime Minister.
Today’s agenda made a similar attempt to shore up her legitimacy by focussing on June 2016, rather than June 2017.
“First, we need to get Brexit right,” May wrote, before noting that “much has been said in recent days about what the General Election signified about Britain’s decision to leave the EU.”
“The fact is that over 80 per cent of the electorate backed the two major parties, both of whom campaigned on manifestos that said we should honour the democratic decision of the British people.”
“While this will be a Government that consults and listens, we are clear that we are going to see Brexit through,” she added.
May has consistently ignored any suggestion that there might be a second referendum on European Union membership.
This way, that way, forward and back way...
May made sure that nods to a potential arrangement with the DUP were kept as oblique as possible, with a simultaneously bold yet vague commitment to “do everything in our power to . . . strengthen our precious union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."
May wrote that her government will “work with all parties in Northern Ireland to support the return of devolved government”—a claim that will presumably cause some raised eyebrows in Sinn Féin, who have suggested that an alliance with the DUP would compromise the government’s ability to act as a mediator in Northern Ireland.
May’s promise to “open new markets for key exporting industries in Northern Ireland” could also ruffle feathers, with the question of what sort of border will exist between Northern Ireland the Republic after Brexit still a fraught topic across the Irish Sea.
The case of the missing proposals
This careful phrasing was typical of a Queen's Speech which was more revealing for what it didn't contain.
Proposals which may have been more difficult to get through the house—including the aforementioned social care proposals, and an energy price cap—have disappeared since the Tory manifesto.
Particularly notable was the absence of May's flagship grammar schools policy.
There was also no mention of foxhunting—or the highly controversial plan to scrap universal free school meals for primary school children.
“Ordinary working people” klaxon!
These days, no Tory document is complete without a reference to “ordinary working people." Yet where May did stress social proposals, they were selected to appeal across the house.
Headlines yelling “Red Tory” seem a distant memory now—but, cast your mind back to before the social care U-turn, and you might recall there was a point in the General Election campaign when May made an effort to park her tanks on Labour’s lawn.
In today's context, May's social proposals seemed less like an assault and more like a calculated white flag.
Proposals to ban letting agents from charging tenant fees were accompanied by promises to tackle the gender pay gap, as well as racial discrimination through a “racial disparity audit of public services.”
May also made a commitment to work towards a new Mental Health Act: a subject which caused her trouble on the campaign trail, when she was accused of conflating mental health conditions with learning disabilities.
A Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill, meanwhile, is set to strengthen sentences on abusers whose crimes involve a child, and to create a new civil prevention and protection order regime to “protect victims.” (This commitment to victims, many will note, does not extend to scrapping the “rape clause,” which requires victims to prove their child was conceived as the result of rape if they wish to seek tax credits for more than two children—despite the fact domestic violence campaigners have warned the requirement could “devastate” survivors.)
May also addressed the Grenfell Tower tragedy—her handling of which surely marked one of the most difficult weeks of her premiership—promising an “independent public advocate for all public disasters, who will act on behalf of bereaved families and also support them at public inquests.”
Whether these appeals will work, however, is another matter.
