May must beware the Ides of March

This Friday is the Ides of March, the day when Romans settled their debts — and the day when Julius Caesar was assassinated. “Beware the Ides of March,” the soothsayer warns him in Shakespeare’s play. Later, on his way to the Senate, Caesar meets the soothsayer again, and remarks in passing: “The ides of March are come.” “Ay, Caesar; but not gone.” Moments after this encounter, Caesar is murdered by, among others, Brutus, his friend and ally; his was, in Mark Antony’s words, “the most unkindest cut of all”.

There comes a time in the career of every leader when the burdens of office become unbearable. They are confronted by a sudden flash of realisation: it’s over. The waning of authority had perhaps been obvious to others for some time, but obscured by the relentless rush of events. Has that moment arrived yet for Theresa May?

On the eve of what promises to be a second historic parliamentary defeat, the Prime Minister is under pressure from all sides to announce a date for her departure. Ever since the disastrous 2017 election, she has been battered by more storms than Beachy Head. She has kept calm and carried on. But as the Brexit process spins ever more out of her control, it is fair to ask: what is the point of this Prime Minister carrying on?

The answer usually given is that there is nobody else who could do the job better. That is patently untrue. A more charismatic leader might have rallied the people, if not Parliament, behind her policy. A more persuasive leader might have won more concessions from the European Union. A less inflexible leader might have altered course before being trapped between a rock (her deal) and a hard place (no deal).

Yet it is equally possible that no amount of charisma, no powers of persuasion and no lack of inflexibility would have avoided the predicament in which Mrs May now finds herself. The imperative of survival always dictated that the EU would impose the harshest possible conditions on the British. The arithmetic of Parliament after the last election was always going to make it almost impossible to find a majority for any policy. The logic of Brexit always led inexorably towards the denouement that the Prime Minister now faces.

So what could a new occupant of Downing Street achieve that would be impossible for the present incumbent? Uniting the Conservative Party might be too much to ask, but the spectre of a Labour government ought to concentrate Tory minds. Don’t worry about a “disorderly” Brexit — how about a disorderly dictatorship of the self-appointed tribunes of the proletariat? Almost any alternative Prime Minister could surely conjure up a vision of chaos under Corbyn that would make Project Fear look as amateurish as it actually was.

The British constitution has been bent out of shape, not so much by Brexit itself as by the ascendency of those who are still in denial about the referendum result. The Speaker, for example, has altered parliamentary procedure to wrest the initiative away from the executive in order to hand it to the legislature. Rightly or wrongly, John Bercow has exceeded his powers and his insubordination cannot be allowed to persist indefinitely without the Queen’s government grinding to a halt. A new Prime Minister would have to engineer the replacement of the Speaker and the restoration of order in the Commons.

The Ides of March are almost come. Before they are gone, it would be better for Mrs May to have made clear how and above all when she will depart. If she does it soon, she has the opportunity to go gracefully. If she clings onto office, then sooner rather than later she will suffer a worse fate than Caesar: not only death by the most unkindest cut of all, but by a thousand of them.