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Theresa May’s last-minute sprint

The prime minister is using her last days and hours in Downing Street to craft some kind of legacy from the wreckage of Brexit.

LONDON — Theresa May is just days away from leaving Downing Street, but she isn't going quietly.

Now that the weight of Brexit has been lifted from her shoulders, aides say the prime minister has a new spring in her step. And she is determined to salvage some kind of legacy from the wreckage of a premiership that was brought down by the U.K.'s biggest political and foreign policy deadlock since the 1956 Suez crisis.

The mood of those around her ranges from heartbroken to jubilant. Her authority with MPs and her Cabinet is gone, with senior figures now jockeying for position under her likely successor, Boris Johnson. Her aides are coming to terms with their inevitable departure, and her enemies are taking a scalpel to a legacy that has already been torn to shreds by her failure to deliver Brexit.

One government figure summed up the mood: “It’s like your old pet dog. You are always sad to lose your old pet dog, but you know its legs are gone and it’s blind and it can no longer function. As sad as it is, it’s time to put it down.”

Since confirming she would stand down two months ago, May's team has rushed out announcements on a wide range of policy areas including mental health, cutting carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 and her opposition to the construction of “tiny” homes — although she has encountered resistance in the form of her chancellor, Philip Hammond. The Treasury boss is determined not to use up a fighting fund of government borrowing to guard against the worst impact of a potential no-deal Brexit.

In a speech Wednesday at Chatham House in London at which she sought to sketch out some of the achievements of her premiership, May said: "Politics is the business of turning your convictions into reality to improve the lives of the people you serve ... I didn’t write about those convictions in pamphlets or make many theoretical speeches about them. I have sought to put them into action."

Those close to the prime minister say she is “fired up” to address some of the issues she was too consumed by Brexit to deal with for most of her tenure. “You can’t underestimate the extent to which Whitehall has ground to a halt because of Brexit,” a Downing Street insider said.

But others view the spate of hurried announcements in a less charitable light. "The prime minister’s legacy will depend on what she has done in the last three years, not what she has done in the last three weeks," said Jacob Rees-Mogg, who chairs the European Research Group of pro-Brexit Tory backbenchers.

The government figure added: “You can either act like a squatter and smash a place up before you are evicted, or you can be a little bit more mature about it and recognize that, as a Conservative Party, we have an obligation to try and improve the lives of our constituents and continue to work as a team.”

May's biographer Rosa Prince saidthe legacy announcements are “symptomatic of Theresa May trying to put a positive spin on things to the wider world — but also to herself.”

Last gasps

Theresa May will leave Downing Street on July 24. She will deliver her final Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons at noon before making a speech on the steps of No. 10 ahead of her departure. She has already been in talks with her chief of staff Gavin Barwell about what she might say in her closing remarks, a government aide said.

May will then head to Buckingham Palace to hand her resignation to the queen. Aides have been told they will not have much time before they will be expected to leave to make way for the new prime minister's team.

Once stripped of her title, May will set up shop as an ordinary backbench MP and continue to represent the people of her Maidenhead constituency. Her ally and former de facto deputy PM Damian Green has agreed to shift offices so she can take the large corner spot in Portcullis House he currently occupies. Former Cabinet minister Nicky Morgan meanwhile is being moved up to the fourth floor of the building so May's staff can take her office.

But before all that, there is still a week to go. Those working close to May describe an eerie atmosphere in Downing Street, as the outgoing administration grapples with its identity and works out how to best spend its notice period.

One Downing Street official said: “We are in a sort of no man’s land where everyone knows they are about to be out of a job. People are getting a bit demob-happy, but we all know the PM is the PM and there is work to do.”

“People have been polishing up their CVs, obviously,” said a second Downing Street official. “We've watched a bit of cricket. It's just pretty weird. We've had a good run, but the truth is I am coming to terms with my own irrelevance.”

One experienced special adviser insists staff will remain focused right up to the handover later this month. “This is always a busy time of year,” the adviser said. “There's the stuff you have to get out before the summer recess — that still has to happen. And there's all the legacy stuff we are trying to do before she goes. People might think we're sitting around but it is not like that.”

The limbo in Downing Street has spread across government and into parliament too. “For some it’s ‘the king is dead, who is the next king?’” the government figure said. “For others, clearly there is that professional aspect that you have got to keep going. The government is still the government.”

Looking to the future

Tory MPs on the backbenches are eager to see the back of May so the party can begin rebuilding after the failure to leave the EU in March and calamity of the European election result for the party. “Finally, we have the chance to move on,” one Tory backbencher said. “The last three years, I’m sure, have been painful for the prime minister on a personal level. Yet they have been a catastrophe for the country and the party.”

Thoughts are also turning to how things might have turned out differently. Rees-Mogg said he feels no remorse over the failed bid he helped to orchestrate with his ERG colleagues to topple May last November. "I would be a nicer person and a kinder person if I did, but I think that had she gone at that point we might have had a chance of leaving on March 29." He says politicians "must never complain about being treated unfairly," but he added: "It’s important to emphasize she is a good person; a decent person. It just hasn't worked. And there is a sadness in that. There is no triumphalism in her departure."

Even those less hostile to May decry her administration's failure to deal with Brexit. George Freeman, who chaired the Downing Street policy board during the early months of her administration, said it was an “honor” to be part of the team. “But a flawed Brexit strategy and a bunker No. 10 led to inevitable failure,” he added. “Despite some important reforms on mental health, women’s rights and human trafficking, the sad truth is that after three years we are now in a far deeper political crisis than in 2016.”

Downing Street staff are bracing themselves for the final moments, when they say goodbye to a boss who struggled and faltered, but who commands great respect, and even love, among those close to her. “It will be sad to see her go,” the Downing Street insider said. “It has been an incredible privilege to work with her. She is a genuine delight.”

Another added: “Contrary to what you might read elsewhere, there is actually a lot of love for her in the team … Once you come to terms with it ending, you focus on making those last few weeks as good for the prime minister — and for yourselves — as possible. In general, the mood is upbeat. And in terms of when to lose one's job, at the start of summer is not the worst time.”

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