May's first appointments show she's a PM that means business

What a momentous day it must have been for Theresa May. Cool, calm and collected, she is said to have spent this very morning working on urgent papers at her Home Office desk, before the most significant event of her life – her appointment with the Queen, at which she replaced David Cameron as Prime Minister.
A somewhat mysterious figure, May’s comparatively low profile and close guarding of her privacy means that we don’t know much about this woman. What we do know, though, is that as Home Secretary, she has proved time and time again that she’s not to be messed with.
Not even a full day in to her premiership, the unveiling of her first cabinet posts proves once again the astuteness behind this quiet, apparently unremarkable woman.
Some will have snorted with disdain or chuckled with bemusement at her appointment of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. Johnson, the Tory showman who inspired the Brexit victory, is so unlike May and to many, is a charismatic figurehead better-positioned to entertain us than represent us in any serious capacity on the world stage. The so-called Brexit Minister is David Davis, for years now a rebellious back-bencher who quit front-bench politics to pursue an impassioned defence of civil liberties, often pitting himself against Theresa May herself.

But don’t let the appointment of a couple of mad mavericks fool you – Theresa isn’t simply rewarding brexiteers (who one suspects she secretly has some sympathy with), nor has she lost the plot, nor is she running scared. She knows very well that, with a slender majority of 12, her premiership faces a very real danger from within. There is a cohort of MPs who backed Andrea Leadsom, supported Brexit and will not take kindly at all to any perceived stitch-up to nullify the vote as they see it. These are the kinds of people that are still angry about Maastricht, the 1975 referendum, anyone who reminds them that Mrs Thatcher signed the Single European Act of 1986, and the Cameron project in general and the belief that their darling, Mrs Leadsom, was destroyed by an establishment ganging up. They want out of the EU and fast. They want, quite frankly, to drag the party back to what it was before – a state which May herself said in 2002 was causing the party to be seen as “the nasty party.”
May knows very well one simple truth in politics: if you’re in government, you’re compromised. You’re bound by the doctrine of collective responsibility – you don’t speak for yourself, but on behalf of your government. Bringing the leading brexiteers in to government, therefore, means bringing them under her control. If they wish to oppose her, they will have to resign. Their appointment demonstrates that May wishes to send out a hard-line, no-nonsense message to Europe, but she also wants the referendum victors to engage with the Brexit process on her rather more sensible terms.

The prospect of a brexiteer coup has already been lessened by the sheer madness among their own ranks – madness exemplified by Michael Gove’s extraordinary decision to stick a dagger right in to the heart of Boris Johnson’s treasured political dream to be the man at the top. Neutralising the few brexiteers that have emerged with any shred of credibility pretty much kills off the prospect of collaboration effective enough to thwart and undermine May. The brexiteers have been given their moment – they either rise to the challenge or fall on their swords.

All of those laughing in disbelief at what first appear to be some very bonkers appointment choices should, therefore, look a little deeper. Her long-time enemy, Michael Gove, committed political suicide. The rest of her enemies within have proved themselves to be selfish opportunists who, having won the vote, have ducked any responsibility for what happens next. No more! It’s a remainer who will do our bidding in Europe. Her Brexit stooges are simply the faces she’ll use to send Europe a clear message: “I mean business!” That’s about all they’re fit for doing.