Andrew Vine: Tories torn apart by void of ideas at heart of Brexit

Their resignations which plunged the Government into crisis yesterday set the bell tolling on Theresa May’s premiership, left the Tories in disarray and Britain with no idea where all this will end.

And all for one reason, as ludicrous as it is simple. Despite formidable intelligence, both individually and collectively, neither had a clue what to do with the prize they craved, a vote to leave the EU, when they won it.

Prime Minister would fight any attempt to oust her, says Downing Street: Click here for more

A central, unanswered question lies at the heart of both resignations. If they disagreed with Theresa May’s plan for Brexit, what would they have proposed instead? It’s a question that both have had more than two years to come up with a coherent answer to, and neither has done so. Crashing out of the EU with no deal and hoping for the best cannot be described as a plan, only as wishful thinking.

Right up until last Friday’s make-or-break Cabinet meeting at Chequers, the posturing self-publicist who was the face of the campaign to leave the EU, and the rather more thoughtful figure charged with delivering Brexit, were united in giving every impression of not actually having a clear plan for doing so.

Boris Johnson adds to Prime Minister’s woes by quitting as Foreign Secretary: Click here for more

So with them both gone, is the outcome of Brexit any clearer? Can Britain look forward with confidence? Do we have a stable Government? No, no and no.

What a mess of self-interest and dogma, the result of which is Jeremy Corbyn not so much taking a step closer to Downing Street as being hoisted shoulder-high by two former members of the Cabinet and carried there to wait outside the gates.

Whether they realised it or not, to the vast majority of voters interested less in Tory politics than getting a sensible deal, Mr Johnson and Mr Davis had become emblematic of everything wrong with this sorry process.

They came to symbolise how the scourge of Euroscepticism that the party has flagellated itself with for decades had trumped everything else.

Except they knew only what they didn’t want, not what they did, and the result has been limbo.

They had no plan to offer, no answers to the questions about immigration, customs controls or trade deals. Instead, there were only warnings about not giving too much ground to the EU, as these ministers were egged on by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Iain Duncan Smith.

And in his resignation letter, Mr Davis was at it again. Mrs May had “given away too much too easily”, he said. So what did he suggest as an alternative last Friday at Chequers, or during the previous two years?

This void at the heart of the thinking of the most passionate advocates of Brexit has produced nothing of benefit, only paralysis in policy and a weak, divided Government.

The whole Brexit process was always going to be deeply divisive, but now it is much more damaging than that thanks to the naked ambition of Boris Johnson, who will tear his party apart – and quite possibly bring the Government down – in his quest to be Prime Minister.

And all the while, the country will 
drift towards Brexit without knowing what will happen, as businesses 
quietly plan to abandon Britain with consequent losses of jobs because of a lack of clarity.

Mrs May has no option but to tough it out. Her proposals for Brexit may be something of a bodge, but they amount to a plan and one that acknowledges the concerns of businesses, so shamefully dismissed with the F-word by Boris Johnson, which even before he resigned demonstrated that he was not fit to occupy the office he held.

Whether Mrs May remains in office long enough to see her plan implemented is another matter.

The resignation of such senior figures inevitably underscores how precarious her position is, and the divisions she struggles to bridge both within the Cabinet and in the parliamentary party, where the clamour on the backbenches will suddenly be a whole lot louder.

It could turn out in the weeks ahead that this is Mrs May’s Geoffrey Howe moment.

Just as his resignation in 1990 marked the beginning of the end for a weakened Margaret Thatcher, so the loss of the Brexit Secretary and Foreign Secretary might have begun the chain of events 
that brings Mrs May down.

But there’s a difference. Then, the Conservative instinct for clinging to power served the party well. They toppled a leader to save a Government. This time that instinct has been stifled by the toxic combination of dogma and ambition, and the whole lot could topple.

And once more, the most vocal advocates of Brexit have set themselves on a course to events that they have no plan for dealing with. The trouble is, it’s not only Conservatives that will suffer the consequences, but all of us.