All language subtitles for Laura Kuenssberg State of Chaos S01E01 May Johnson

This place is meant to be in charge.

But, with five
prime ministers in six years,

it hasn't felt that way.

The whole operation of Number Ten
was utterly broken down.

What's the answer?

We became a laughing
stock of the world.

An utter catastrophic disaster.

In this series,
we're trying to work out

what happened to
our political system.

I think we've lost our minds.

I don't know a single MP
who didn't get a death threat.

The party that likes
to believe it's born to rule

has indulged in an epic drama
with no lasting heroes.

I have been a systematic
plotter who's tried to remove

the Prime Minister.

You are not children
in the playground!

You are legislators!

Hear, hear!

I'm Laura Kuenssberg

and I was the BBC's political
editor for nearly seven years.

It was my job to make sense
of what on earth was going on,

or at least to try, as we all
lived through a norm-busting,

convention-defying
moment of history.

Was Theresa May a good
Prime Minister? No.

I think she was a good
Prime Minister, yes.

I think she was dealt
an impossible hand,

but then played it badly.

In this episode, not one but two
prime ministers removed from office,

as Britain battles with the
biggest challenge in a generation.

Do we have a plan for Brexit?

We do.

He's gone.

SHE GASPS
He's done, he's gone, he's gone.

Thank you very much.

Months in the making,
working with insiders

who've never spoken publicly before,

we go behind the scenes to
Westminster's real cast list -

the civil servants,
the ministers and the advisers

now free to speak.

I'm done with slagging off...

I know you don't want to be
personal. I'm not really into...

I'm very happy to
be personal about Boris.

Just how close did our political
system come to falling apart?

There was no plan.

And will it ever be the same again?

It is the end of normal.

And so we begin,

the country has
voted to leave the EU.

It's Friday, the 24th of June.

The people of Britain have
voted to leave the European Union

in an historic move that has
stunned the rest of the continent

and sent the pound plunging
on the international markets.

One of my children came
very quietly up the stairs,

when he'd woken up before
going to school, and said,

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, we've won!"

Got woken up by one of my kids to
say,

you know, "It looks like
it's gone the wrong way."

The greatest change to the
British state in a generation -

uncertainty
the greatest force at play.

Politicians,
whatever side they were on,

had little clue about
what would come next.

I seem to remember it was
a really nice, sunny day

and I just went for a
run on Wimbledon Common.

I remember people
stopped me and said,

"What happens now, Justine?"

And I was saying to them,
"I don't know."

I had no idea what was coming,

but, in that moment, it felt an
enormous thing that we'd won.

We were going to leave the EU.

THEY CHEER

I remember being on College Green,
opposite Parliament,

giving interviews, blazing
sunshine, but really thinking,

"What on earth is
going to happen now?"

My first reaction is, "We're about
to lose a really good prime
minister

"who had a few more years in him

"and we don't know now who
is going to come after that."

THEY CHANT: Leave EU! Leave EU!

Leavers were jubilant.

But, despite remnants of cheap
white wine the next morning,

no celebrations among the
conservatives Brexit cheerleaders.

Johnson and Gove appeared,
blinking into the headlights,

flustered, bewildered, scared.

"Oh, my God. What have we done?

"We didn't really mean to do this."

These were not genuine Brexiteers,

there's no way that they were.

Ben Gascoigne has been at
Boris Johnson's side for years.

He's never publicly spoken
about that work before.

I didn't see Boris,
at any stage, jubilant.

He was very pensive throughout

and, to some extent, subdued.

He became increasingly aware

of the role and
responsibility he now had.

I think he was more
nervous than scared.

Across this place, Whitehall,

there was a sense of disbelief.

If you'd been listening at all,

the result was not a surprise,

but the Civil Service had not
expected or prepared for it.

It was like, suddenly,
we had this mountain to climb,

and the whole thing
was shrouded in mist,

and we didn't know
what we had to do,

how we were going to do it.

We were confronted with
this enormous challenge

of dealing with something
that was unprecedented.

There was no plan.

The main feeling in the Foreign
Office building was of mourning.

People were in tears.

People were in shock.

I walked around the
Foreign Office corridors

and people were devastated.

There were civil servants in floods
of tears, people hugging each other.

There was an overall
really downbeat mood.

Helen MacNamara has
worked across government

through the wildest of times.

Rising to become
Deputy cabinet Secretary,

she was in the room when
the biggest political decisions

were taken by those at the top.

She's never spoken publicly before.

Did it feel like there was a plan?

No. No.

Which is understandable.
I mean, it's a hell of a question.

But I don't think, institutionally,
Whitehall was ready.

Of course we weren't.
I mean, we weren't ready at all.

And whose fault was that -
that Whitehall wasn't ready?

I think it's impossible to be ready.

There might not have been a plan

for what would happen
after the referendum

and paranoia soon filled the vacuum.

Brexiteers feared civil servants
in powerful government departments

would stymie the UK's exit.

The Treasury is a very powerful
department from the Chancellor down.

The Treasury never wanted to leave,

didn't like the result,
and tried to obstruct it.

The Treasury's behaviour
during this period

was anti-democratic,
it's deeply unsatisfactory.

The Treasury,
throughout that period,

was often accused of
trying to block Brexit.

The Treasury was
trying to go for a soft,

not proper, Brexit -
or Brexit in name only.

What do you say to
those accusations?

Yeah. I mean, the Treasury was
accused of all sorts of things.

I was accused of
all sorts of things.

I mean, the Treasury was certainly
trying to go for a soft Brexit

and I don't think we should
apologise for that at all.

One of the things that made me spit
then, and makes me furious even now,

were these accusations
that the Civil Service was somehow

trying to stop Brexit happening.

I mean, I worked
for a department that,

by the time I left,
there was about 700 of us,

dedicated public servants
who were doing that job

to deliver what ministers wanted.

But, like I had never seen before...

..others in Whitehall were open
about their fears of Brexit.

So I was by no means the only
Brexiteer in the Civil Service,

but I think I would definitely
say that I was in a minority

within the Foreign Office.

I went to a meeting and, at it,
a civil servant said,

"We know the British
people got it wrong."

And, for me, that undermined
everything about public service

and about democracy,
about self-determination.

It's not for one civil servant
to say that the British people

got it wrong because they
disagree with the outcome.

The golden rule of the Civil Service
is not to pick a side,

but it was being stretched.

A clear, but narrow, majority
of voters wanted out of the EU,

defying the expectations held

in the grand old
buildings of Whitehall,

but some of its powerful players
were ready to defy convention, too.

On this occasion,
this solitary occasion,

I decided to tell my colleagues,

and therefore let ministers know,

that I had voted to
remain in the European Union.

I felt that they would
assume that in any case,

so I decided to embrace it.

Having covered politics
for more than 20 years, though,

it's extraordinary
to hear you tell us

that you told people how you
voted...

..because that
principle of impartiality

is what holds the
Civil Service together.

I was trying to maintain credibility

and trying to convey a message

to a group of people,

most of whom I felt had
voted to remain in the EU,

that their personal feelings
were beside the professional point.

It was a personal decision.

My board were not
entirely comfortable

and, all these years later,

you can have a conversation
about was it the right decision.

Simon McDonald has
told us, on the record,

that he told his colleagues and
ministers that he voted Remain.

Wow.

OK.

That's...
That's genuinely surprising.

Why? Why is it surprising?

To be so explicit
about what you personally,

how you personally had voted,

and I don't know why,

I don't know why that would
be a good or helpful thing.

With Whitehall shaken, the Tory
Party was visibly starting to crack.

I remember sitting in the back
of the cab and the radio broke out.

RADIO: It's all happening down
at Westminster, breaking news.

And it said, "Breaking news,

"The Justice Secretary,
Michael Gove, has just announced

"he is running for the leadership
of the Conservative Party."

RADIO: Michael Gove is standing.

My instant reaction was,
"God, they've got that wrong.

"They've got that really wrong."

But Michael Gove had
betrayed his running mate,

forcing Boris Johnson
out of the leadership race.

It was a genuinely shocking twist

and it changed British
politics for years to come.

I have concluded that
person cannot be me.

I really feel that
what Michael Gove did

actually changed the course
of history of this country.

There are many words I'd
use to describe what he did,

words like betrayal, like deceitful.

Although I didn't
know that the result

of Michael Gove's actions

would be a Theresa May government

and utter chaos
and stalemate, and gridlock,

I kind of sensed,
"This is really bad."

HORN BLARES

From the start, this meant
Leavers did not have the chance

to deal with Brexit.

In the scramble that
followed, they lost control.

Candidates fell fast,
one after the other,

leaving only Theresa May...

..a Remainer, a reserved politician,

Prime Minister by default,

charged with calming a warring party

and controlling a system in shock.

This was a huge responsibility
that she was taking on.

A colleague had had the foresight to
buy a very big bunch of flowers

for me to present to Theresa as
well -

I confess that I hadn't
thought of doing that.

I am honoured...

She knew Brexiteers
wouldn't trust her,

so built a cabinet
half Leave, half Remain.

In theory, a perfect balance,

but, in practice, disastrously
divided from the start.

I want to welcome everybody to this,

the first cabinet meeting
of this new government.

We won't be a government
that's defined just by Brexit.

We will also be a government
defined by the social reform.

The May government was riven

by this ideological difference

about whether Brexit was
a good thing or a bad thing.

We'd end up with hours of
interminable debates, where,

and Theresa May
would go round and ask

every single cabinet
minister to speak,

and it meant
these long, long meetings

that didn't really
come to a conclusion.

Her favourite expression
at the end of a meeting was,

"Let me think about it."

Cabinet ministers, even though
they might disagree in private,

collectively have
to agree something

and I can totally understand

why she had to have the
balanced cabinet that she did,

but, in practice, it made
governing almost impossible.

With cabinet a flawed forum,

Theresa May used a powerful pair
of advisers to govern instead.

One of the most, sort of,
impactful decisions she made

was she chose to have
two Chiefs of Staff,

two people that were
particularly close to her,

Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy.

Special advisers in general
really exist to give advice,

as the title suggests,

but also to act as the kind of
voice on earth for their principle.

You absolutely need to
have that trust between

the principal and the adviser,

so she certainly
really trusted in us.

Where she wasn't so trusting was
with her political colleagues.

As Prime Minister,
you will always be careful about

who you trust, you ought to be.

It was just a very
professional relationship.

It wasn't a relationship where...

We were friendly,
but we weren't friends.

It was always professional
and slightly at something

of a distance and a reserve.

It's obviously a good thing
to bring trusted people with you,

but two people isn't really enough.

If you're the Prime Minister,
you need to hear a good debate

amongst people who
have very different views

from you and from each other.

A million miles from David Cameron's
government of chums,

there were fierce
protectors of Theresa May.

Always alert to threat,

always conscious she had
no mandate of her own,

they sought to conquer, not cajole.

There were two very powerful
Joint Chiefs of Staff

who were disliked by
many people across Whitehall.

You've previously called them
a poisonous set of advisers -

why do you say that?

It was the effect they
had on the system,

that Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill
were feared by the system,

even though very
few parts of the system

had any contact at all with them

because they were in the
ivory tower of Number Ten.

They liked to project
this sort of reign of terror -

that it was their way or no way.

There's a culture clash, where you

as somebody who works to
a democratic timetable,

with maximum terms of five years,

you have time limits on what you can
do and how quickly you can do it

and you have a sense of urgency that
is sometimes lacking in the system.

And the Civil Service tends to
work in this slightly strange way,

with euphemistic language,

which is sometimes
caricatured in TV series.

And there's a culture
clash between the politicos

and the civil servants - sometimes.

But the bigger clash
was inside the Tory Party.

With only a tiny majority,

Theresa May didn't have
the authority to impose agreement.

The solution?

A secret.

The pair kept it from
the cabinet and the country -

and, at the start, from her.

I remember being in the Rose Garden,

having a private
conversation with Nick,

and sitting on a bench, thinking,

"But how does it now look,
in the cold light of day?"

And it was quite cold,
because it was December.

I do remember a conversation in the
Rose Garden over the winter season.

Fi used to go out
there for a cigarette,

so I used to dutifully follow her.

We talked through the
reality of the situation

and the fact that we thought that an
election was going to be necessary.

At this point, we didn't
mention it to Theresa at all.

Nick and I kept it as
a two-man conversation.

She only had a small
majority in Parliament.

Now, if you've got
an ambitious policy

and you really need the
freedom and the power to negotiate,

well, then you need to line that
up with your political support

and that meant getting a
bigger majority in Parliament.

I get a phone call to go
and see the Prime Minister.

There'd been a lot of chatter.
You'd had Philip Hammond,

David Davis pushing very
hard for an early election,

but we always had the view that
elections are always dangerous.

Of course, any election
can be dangerous.

And I remember, before cabinet,
she had a series of one-to-ones

with figures
like Boris Johnson

who, at that point,
was Foreign Secretary.

It was a surprise to some
people around the cabinet table

because not all of them had had
those advanced conversations.

The response from
cabinet, when she told them,

was one of universal
praise and agreement.

I was sat around the cabinet table.

Announcing an election when
you haven't really worked out

what you think your
manifesto is going to be

wasn't at all a smart decision.

I have just chaired a
meeting of the cabinet

where we agreed that the Government
should call a general election.

This was a big surprise.

My Director of Communications
came in and told me the news.

I remember being quite surprised,

given that we'd said,
on a number of occasions,

that there wasn't going
to be a general election.

I remember having
these conversations.

We were riding the crest of a wave.

We can actually do pretty
much whatever we want,

we just need to put
it into the manifesto.

The logic of the election was to get
the votes needed to manage Brexit,

but May's team could not
resist the bigger opportunity -

to try and change the country
in all sorts of other ways.

I oversaw the policy work,

so, with the Downing
Street Policy Unit,

and working with different ministers
and advisers from across government,

we produced the manifesto.

The manifesto was decided
almost entirely by her core team,

especially her two Chiefs of Staff.

The cabinet were not included,
in any meaningful way,

in putting together that manifesto.

The election had been a secret.

What it was trying to achieve
had been closely guarded, too.

Some of the most
powerful people in the country

had hardly any idea
what they'd be standing for.

I'll never forget, we were
in the bus, going to Halifax,

with this bus full of cabinet
ministers,

and Boris saying, "Has anyone
seen this effing manifesto?"

One of the people around Theresa May

came and gave us each a
copy and she said to us,

"Go down, sit in the front
row and don't look like

"you've never read it before."

I launch my manifesto
for Britain's Future.

I was handed a copy
of the manifesto.

I ripped open the envelope.

I flicked to my area.

I saw this social care policy.

I read, in about five seconds,

I worked out it was going
be a total, utter disaster.

I'd never seen it before.

I went over to Philip Hammond,
said, "What's this?"

He said... You know, I won't
say exactly what he said

because it won't be good for TV.

THERESA MAY: We will
forge a new deep and special...

We actually had a very good
economic story to tell,

but we didn't tell
that story, you know?

It led to some
really catastrophic mistakes.

REPORTER: The population is ageing.
How to pay for...

Tough, perhaps sensible,
plans to fix the country's

stubborn problems because Theresa
May wanted to get things done.

But mistake number one,

her plan to shape how we care
for the elderly and vulnerable.

Getting rid of your nurses?!
I have been a nurse for 27 years!

My regret with the manifesto
was, on social care,

it was the fact that, actually,
we did get it wrong.

I mean, it did worry people.

And then, actually,
I think it is true, you know,

the party then
struggled to communicate it

and certainly our politicians
reported a negative reaction

on the doorstep.

I'm just a little bit unnerved,
I have to say,

about the old people's bill
changing.

Yes.

The Prime Minister had to budge,
but it was awkward, embarrassing,

and she showed her nerves.

Nothing has changed.

Nothing has changed.

Theresa May tried her best.

I think she had a very
poor team around her,

so made some very poor choices.

Theresa wanted that
policy in her manifesto.

She was adamant that she was having
that policy in her manifesto

and she then had to
defend that decision

for the rest of
the campaign, really.

The enthusiasm of the first
two weeks had disappeared

and it was a much
harder grind out there.

The momentum had all
shifted to Jeremy Corbyn.

THEY CHANT: Corbyn! Corbyn!

The whole
atmosphere of that campaign

can be only summed up with one word,

and that is cold and grim -

that's two words.

I don't know if you were counting.

I remember a moment in
the campaign where Fi said,

"Oh, God, you know, we're Remain.
We're Hillary Clinton.

"This is a campaign
that's not going right."

Really, it needed to
be a quick election on,

"Give Theresa May the
majority to deal with Brexit."

And so I think it was
right to have an election,

but, unfortunately,
it was then it was then fought

on the wrong timetable
and in the wrong way.

And what we're saying is the
Conservatives are the largest party.

Note, they don't have
an overall majority.

At 10pm on polling day,

so I'd just finished knocking up,
calling on supporters,

trying to get them to come out and
vote.

And as soon as I'd heard the
exit poll, I knew I'd lost.

From there on in,

everything felt like it was on fire

and there was no control.

It felt like the sky was coming in.

Lynton Crosby was sort
of swearing and saying,

"It's wrong, it's effing wrong."

And Stephen Gilbert was a campaign
specialist who worked for the party,

took me to one side
and he just said,

"Exit polls are never wrong."

The whole thing is just a daze.

I don't really remember
leaving central office.

REPORTER: Anything to
say about what's happened?

It was obvious, within hours,
Nick and Fi must go.

There's no... You know,
either you go or they go.

And she very quickly...

..chucked them under the bus,
of course.

She told me that I had
to resign and...I resigned,

and that was the end.

Although it wasn't really the end

because then I spent quite a long
time being thrown under the bus

and having my reputation

completely and utterly ruined

without any support from either
the party or the Government,

but that's politics.

Politics is a very rough business.

I had written the manifesto

and I think it is true that
we were blamed more broadly

and we did suffer, you know,
quite seriously afterwards.

But, in the end,
if you're in these positions,

you have to take responsibility.

The Prime Minister
had lost her top team,

her majority and
much of her authority.

She needed help.

The Prime Minister came
on the phone and, initially,

I still didn't really believe that
I was going to be offered this job,

so I thought she was probably
just phoning to apologise

for what had happened in the
election,

and that's how she started.

And then she said,

"Anyway, I'm in a bit of a hole
and I wonder if you'd come and help

"and try and dig me out of it."

The election had
given Theresa May's rivals

inside her own party
more power and taken hers away.

Looking back, we can say, of course,
"Everything started with Brexit,"

but I think that general election,

which lots of people thought
the Tories would win easily,

I think that set the tone
for the next few years.

A minority government
passing through some of the most

controversial, difficult,

fundamental constitutional

legislation that we've had
in 100 years was always bound

to hit severe problems.

What difference did it make

to how you were operating

in Whitehall when
Theresa May lost the majority?

The reason why she had
called the election was to

marginalise the awkward squad

in her Parliamentary party

and suddenly that awkward
squad was even more powerful,

so what had been difficult
became even more difficult.

Yet Theresa May's
determination to hang on

saw her through for a while,

with a fierce desire to
find agreement on Brexit -

or at least to try.

In secret, with officials
and a select few ministers,

she landed on a plan to present
to the cabinet at Chequers.

The UK would leave the EU,

but would still share
many of the bloc's rules.

Even before ministers sat down,

her plans were under attack for
sticking too closely to Brussels.

Would the cabinet even last the
day at the country retreat?

It was an absolutely
lovely summer's day

and this contrast between
the blue skies,

the gorgeous countryside,

these wonderful gardens

and this really difficult debate

that was taking place in the house

couldn't have been greater.

Tension was very high.

Anticipation was very high.

The media narrative was that

"We're camped outside Chequers,

"long lenses at the ready,
waiting to see who leaves first."

That was the narrative and, of
course, it didn't happen that way.

From miles away,

we could spot some of the most
important political conversations

in a generation, but no-one flounced
out - not yet.

I can remember the dinner
where Boris Johnson stood up,

unprompted, and led a toast to
the Prime Minister and saying,

"You have given us a song to sing."

Nobody broke ranks during the day

and then, of course,
overnight, it all fell apart.

Hello.

So what happened?

Oh, really?

So far, the only people tonight
who are answering their phones

are former Remainers.

Eventually, at midnight,
a call told me that David Davis,

the Brexit Secretary,
would quit when morning broke.

REPORTER: Within the past few
minutes, the Brexit Secretary,

David Davis,
has resigned from the government.

I didn't know that David would go,

but, of course, it left us,
as a department, in the lurch

because we'd lost our
political leadership.

My job as the permanent secretary

is to keep the morale
of the department high,

so I thought, "I'd better
go and talk to my team."

And I find myself standing
literally on a soapbox

in this big room, with
hundreds of my team around me,

thinking, "Do you know what? I
haven't got a clue what's going on."

It was almost like
Hamlet without the Prince

because everybody knew,
David Davis having gone,

that the most interesting
person in town was Boris Johnson.

What would he do?

I got a message from Number Ten

saying, "Prime Minister needs you
back in Number Ten straight away."

She was on the phone to Boris.

She'd been on the phone
to him for about 20 minutes.

But in the end, she sort of said,

"Look, Boris,
I have got other meetings.

"Are you resigning or
are you not resigning?"

So she almost had to kind of provoke
him into making the decision.

I was camped outside
Boris Johnson's residence

when the decision came through.

He's gone. He's gone.
He's gone. He's gone.

The last few minutes,
after warnings from friends

in the last half hour
or so that he might quit,

Downing Street has
actually confirmed that he has.

On the day he chose to resign,

he spent a weekend agonising
over the deal that was on offer.

It was very clear,
though, it wasn't possible.

It was another journey point,
I felt, of the Leave campaigners

stepping up their campaigning.

After Chequers,
it became absolutely evident

that they were working with
various paid campaign groups

to actually declare
against the Chequers deal.

You know, "Chuck Chequers"
they called it.

The direction of radicalising MPs

against any deal
that Theresa May could do

became really clear after Chequers.

Make no mistake, this was a plot
to get rid of the Chequers deal

and, ultimately, to
get rid of Theresa May.

I spent the subsequent
weekend in my roof study,

in front of my big screens, in my
shorts and flip flops and T-shirt,

absolutely waging
war on the Government.

Twitter, WhatsApp,
talking to colleagues,

procuring resignations,

planting stories with journalists,

amplifying tweets by sending
them round networks of MPs.

Absolutely whipping the media cycle,
and the newspapers, into a frenzy.

The achievement of Chequers was

to have put together
a Brexit deal at all.

That was no mean feat,
but it meant Theresa May

could no longer hide
behind her vague mantra of

"Brexit means Brexit".

She had chosen, picked a deal
that was too close to the EU

for many MPs who'd wanted to leave.

So, from that moment on,

they had cause to agitate
and they had a potential leader.

Looking back now, you can
see that's when both sides

started to harden their attitude

and a new, radical
ugliness began to emerge.

Were there people
that were deliberately

trying to sabotage her,
do you think?

Oh, yeah, of course
there were. Yeah.

It's undoubtedly the case that, in
the course of my political career,

I have been a systematic
plotter who's tried to

remove the Prime Minister
and eventually succeeded.

And it doesn't give
me any great pleasure,

but it'd be too bashful
to pretend otherwise.

I remember reading
one newspaper story

where a Conservative
backbencher said,

"The knife is being warmed up and
it will be plunged in the front."

And...what kind of person
who's an elected politician

says that about anybody,

let alone somebody that is
the leader of their own party?

And I think that speaks
to the kind of poison

that was injected into
our politics by this issue.

Did she feel it?
I'm sure she must have.

Any human being would wonder how
people that you regard as colleagues

could be speaking
about you in those terms.

There was a lot of
personal attacks going on,

people being undermined anonymously,
or not so anonymously.

The Civil Service
got swept up in that.

That was an inevitable
consequence of this deep,

deep ideological rift
in the heart of the party,

which was translated in
the heart of the government.

Every day, my phone buzzed

with almost unbelievable quotes

from Conservatives
about other Conservatives,

privately vicious,
sometimes cruel, even publicly,

like nothing I'd ever seen before.

I remember one occasion
when we were doing an interview

and you said some of your
colleagues were traitors.

I don't remember
saying that, actually,

and I'm rather ashamed
that I did use the T-word.

Why do you think people did
use that kind of language?

I suppose, where my temper got high,

and if I used the T-word,
which I regret...

..and feel slightly ashamed of,

then it will be because
you just get to the point,

you just cannot understand
why anyone would disagree

that people's vote needs to
be able to count for something!

It felt like a political war.

No deal.

No agreement.

Anger everywhere.

MPs couldn't agree inside,

the two camps boiled over outside.

We looked on, trying to understand.

It felt alien, sometimes unsafe.

Parliament looked
like the crazy place

and the television pictures
made it look like Westminster

was sort of a place of civil war.

Yeah. One of the
difficulties that we had,

throughout the whole process,

was you were almost kind
of fighting a war on two fronts.

If you'd have Parliament
united behind you,

you'd have been in a much stronger
negotiating position with the EU.

And if the EU had been supportive
of something like Chequers,

you might then have been able
to sell it to Parliament.

But we were actually
stuck in this horror show

of simultaneously trying
to convince two parties,

neither of whom
was completely convinced

by what we were trying to do.

I definitely felt that sometimes
Parliament was kind of wild, really.

I mean, it really did
feel like sort of fever dream,

and you'd actually
be in the building,

and it had, like, a really
extraordinary atmosphere

and energy during that period.

Locking!

In a moment, in a moment...
Hear, hear!

..I will take interventions.

What are you playing at?!

Hear, hear!

What are you doing?!

You are not children
in the playground.

You are legislators!

I don't regret it.

I mean, I was trying
to inject into the House

a sense that we needed
to take responsibility

for this really complicated problem,

but I was also becoming,
by then, increasingly troubled

by the real prospect that
Brexit would be lost completely.

There were lots of people
within the Conservative Party

that didn't want to
see Brexit happen

and they voted consistently
against the Government,

and it was a very
difficult time for the Whips.

I was briefly a minister in the
Department for Exiting the EU.

We never knew, from
one day to the next,

whether we could win a vote or not.

Well, good morning, everybody.

I remember being in
Number Nine Downing Street,

which was the office
of the Chief Whip,

Saturdays, Sundays, the Whips'
Office was working all hours

trying to hold the party together,
trying to find resolutions.

It was relentless.

I think, if it was possible
to cancel social engagements,

and anything other than
complete focus on this task,

I'd appreciate it.

What was the impact on you?

Well, I lost most of my hair.

I find it...

..very stressful
just in terms of not resolve...

I'm used to kind
of resolving issues.

Parliament felt
completely paralysed.

I mean, so many different
versions of Brexit deals

had gone to Parliament, and
Parliament was rejecting everything,

every version.
There was no agreement at all.

It was so negative that it
was changing me as a person.

I'm a very positive,
constructive person,

and I like to work on and for
things, and getting things done,

and it was really
this version of politics

that is the antithesis of me.

Many MPs, particularly women,
felt the same -

being screamed at -
feeling fear was not unusual.

Panic alarms, security became
part of the tools of the trade.

I think, if you're in a system,
which is how Brexit,

Westminster, felt
for three and a bit years,

where you achieve absolutely nothing

but just go through the
same emotions and votes

and conversations and abuse
over and over and over again,

I don't think it's any
surprise that many women decided,

"Actually, you know, the House of
Commons is not for me any more."

I remember saying to my staff once,

"All this talk about death threats,
I don't get any."

And they said to me, "Um, we just
haven't told you about them."

So I don't know a single MP
who didn't get a death threat.

Such is the hatred of
me that has been spread

by daily newspapers,
by some broadcasters,

I can't even travel
on public transport

and probably never
will be able to again.

And people accuse me of being toxic

by arguing we should be
independent - I don't think so.

I don't know what a revolution
in a democracy would look like,

but it probably looks
quite a lot like this.

The middle ground does clear out -

it did clear out -

and, from my perspective,

you did have to make some choices

about which side you were going to
be on.

THEY SHOUT

There was no middle ground.

It was binary.

The extremes at both
sides came here to face-off,

Remainer rage and
Brexit frustration boiling over.

This didn't look
or feel like Britain.

I do remember a couple of days
thinking, "I don't recognise this.

"What is this going on here?"

Do you remember how you felt about

some of those really intense
moments?

The challenge with Brexit
was that the tone of the debate

was so unpleasant and negative.

You know, referenda tend to embolden
and empower the extremes of debate,

whereas Parliamentary democracy
brings you together

because, ultimately, it's at
the balance between the two sides

that you come to a conclusion.

This is what referendums do,

they drive a very deep wedge
into the political psyche

of the country and it's very,
very hard to recover from that.

We saw that in Scotland.

Because I'd been so
involved in that campaign,

I sort of knew what was coming,
and it's not been pretty.

Theresa May could not drive
Parliament to a decision,

she did not have the
power to make it happen.

I think colleagues became
more and more frustrated

that it wasn't clear how we were
going to move forward in any way.

Political power is so
ephemeral it just dissipates

and it was clear that
power was...was dissipating.

The Conservatives
were so violently divided,

the Prime Minister took a last gasp

by looking to the other side.

It was a sign of
Theresa May's desperation

that she reached out to
the opposition parties

because, frankly, her own party was
absolutely impossible to deal with.

But it was far too late.

She was always in a difficult
position because she was a Remainer,

albeit a very quiet one,

who had become the
leader of a rabidly Eurosceptic...

...anti-EU membership party.

I think the compromise
was almost impossible.

There wasn't a version of Brexit
that was going to be leaving enough.

We'd have to leave everything else

or tow the country
to somewhere else.

There just wasn't...
It was this insatiable...

It felt like an insatiable demand.

Talks between Labour and the
Tories stuttered along for a while.

Looking back, though,
it was just too late.

Things were so stuck that all
sorts of ideas were on the table.

Leaving the EU without a deal,

hated in Remainer quarters.

Asking the public to vote
again in another referendum,

despised by Brexiteers.

But Parliament was failing.

There was even talk of another PM.

I do remember a weekend
when it was suggested to me

that actually Theresa May would go.

David Lidington would
become the Prime Minister.

There would be a second referendum
and this deal would all happen.

How much of that is true

and what do you remember?

I-I... It's not a conversation
I've ever had with David,

but it was definitely
something that some people

were talking about as a
sort of potential way through.

How does it feel to
you that, you know,

there were conversations
about a national government

where you would
have become Prime Minister,

done a deal with the Labour Party?

I think some people who were
on the Brexit side of the argument

might think that there were plots
going on

and, actually, frankly, that

that would have been an outrage.

Yes, that was what happened,
I think, at the end of the day.

Theresa was not going to go,
I mean, that was very clear.

And I certainly made never,
never made any suggestion to her

or made any move against her -
I would not have done so.

But there weren't conspiracies.

What there were were...

..increasingly
desperate searches for ways

in which to break
the deadlock with a deal.

One by one, the doors
closed on Theresa May.

I think the country had a good sense

that we were in a real
crisis in government.

The only way out was for her to go,

leaving behind a broken parliament,

a battered party, and no Brexit.

So, when it came then to the day,

it was obvious that
she wasn't going to go on,

you were, of course,
one of the people

who had to take her
through that decision

and I think it was just you
and her then at the end. Yeah.

Can you just tell us
what that was like?

I mean, it's
obviously a very power...

I mean, I felt like
I'd let her down because...

I mean, there's not
there's not a job description

to being Chief of Staff.

But if you were going to write one,

what paragraph 1.0 is,

"Keep the Prime
Minister in Number Ten."

So...it was a very painful moment.

But she made it very
easy for me cos she said,

"I've talked to Philip and
I've come to the same conclusion."

I do so with no ill will,

with enormous and enduring gratitude

to have had the opportunity
to serve the country I love.

Kind of ran in through
Number 11 to catch up.

She was waiting for me
outside the cabinet room

and she sort of, straight away,
apologised for getting emotional.

And it's the one time when I lost
my temper with her a little bit,

and I sort of said,

"Why are you apologising
for showing some emotion?

"For two years, I've said to you,
show more of yourself to people."

And then she just said,
"OK, yeah, but you wait and see.

"The newspapers will use
those images differently

"because I'm a woman."

And she was right, actually,
in terms of how the images

were then portrayed, I think.

Was Theresa May a
good Prime Minister?

No, sadly.

She wasn't...

Not a good Prime Minister,

an utter catastrophic disaster.

Yes, she was.

And I think, if it hadn't
been for the Brexit negotiation,

she would have continued
to be a good Prime Minister.

Probably my favourite bit
of working with Theresa May

was right at the end,
when she just went and did

all of the things on her list.

She really meant it about injustice,

and particularly what
she could do for women

and people who didn't have a voice.

She's a really very, very, very
impressive person to work for,

and somebody who inhabited the
office of Prime Minister totally.

Theresa May is a good person...

..but it's hard to say she
was a good Prime Minister

because...of the great difficulties

that arose over Brexit
and the 2017 election.

The Conservative Party is,
historically,

the party of stability,

sound government,
proper management, etc.

To be honest, I think the chaos

of 2017 and 2018 had
already significantly

undermined our reputation.

"Strong and stable"?

More like messy and miserable.

Conservatives reckoned
their reputation might be shot.

Yet, inside Government,

civil servants were
preparing to do it all again.

It's a very weird experience,

those days of PM changeover.

She's saying "goodbye"
and "thank you"

to me and the cabinet Secretary.

And you were thinking sort of,
"Brace, brace,"

ready for what's coming next.

Looking back, perhaps it was always
going to have to be Boris Johnson,

political karma that
Brexit's biggest cheerleader

would have to clear up the mess
or make the most of the opportunity,

depending which camp you asked.

We must now respect that decision.

But his approach would
be totally different -

divide and rule.

The method, perhaps the madness,

drive anyone who
disagreed into the ground.

This is the start of a
new and very different era.

Boris Johnson and the
Brexiteers are now in charge.

Maybe they're not so
much taking back control

in inheriting a precarious
and fragile position.

The Prime Minister's chief plotter
and sidekick, Dominic Cummings,

for whom provocation
was how to get things done.

The way that Boris Johnson
ran Number Ten was different

from any Prime Minister
in my professional life.

He brought in the most
powerful Chief of Staff

the United Kingdom has ever seen.

Until that point, Prime Ministers
and their staff

have been in basic
sympathy with the system.

They've all wanted to
change it in some way,

but nobody else has
wanted to break it first.

They switched the team,

promised to leave
the EU at Halloween,

whatever the cost,

but they had to
unstick the same problem

Theresa May had,
gridlock in Parliament.

Dark whispers about
closing the Commons down,

proroguing, or shutting
Parliament, were denied,

but then swirled
and then denied again.

Would they dare?

You had lunch with Dominic Cummings
the day before prorogation.

Yeah. Can you tell us about that?

Where were you and
what did he say to you?

Yeah, we were in the cafe
downstairs in Downing Street.

Boris and Dominic Cummings,

as his sort of henchman on Brexit,

they knew that I was
against prorogation.

I asked him, "Are you going
to prorogue Parliament?"

And he said, "No."

At midnight, a cabinet minister
called me in outrage

to say Jacob Rees-Mogg,
one of the Privy Councillors,

was heading to see the
Queen the next morning.

Proroguing Parliament, keeping
the Commons closed for weeks,

to prevent MPs checking or
stopping Boris Johnson's Brexit.

It really was the secret plan,

despite those weeks of denial.

I actually got a text from
Philip Hammond that morning saying,

"Have you heard the
cabinet's about to be

"bounced into
proroguing Parliament?"

I didn't think
anybody would go that far.

I literally remember
taking a gulp of breath

because, as you said, this is...this
is something we haven't seen before.

Boris Johnson was
the new Prime Minister

and he had every right
to prorogue Parliament to...

..in order to set his
agenda and his own terms.

The authority to shut Parliament
for an extra five weeks

rested with the Queen on the
advice of the Prime Minister.

This is normally routine.

But when Number Ten
admitted what was going on

before nine that
morning, it was plain.

This time it was anything but.

I was still on holiday,
trying to verify that

that was actually true -

and it is - so here we go.

The cabinet was
assembled by telephone

and, immediately
prior to that meeting,

the Prime Minister telephoned me...

..on my mobile phone
and said to me, in terms,

"Please don't spook the cabinet
with talking about mitigation risk."

Though I should
give my legal opinion,

I shouldn't dwell too
largely upon the risks.

It was a ploy to deny MPs time
to block Boris Johnson's plan

to leave the EU without a deal

and the Queen was
being asked to approve it.

I turned up at Heathrow

and, by the time we got to the desk
to get onto the flight,

we bumped into the former Black Rod,

who immediately realised that
three privy counsellors on a flight

to Aberdeen must be up to something.

Then, suddenly, we get the call,
that we're having a cabinet call,

and it's on Twitter

that Jacob Rees-Mogg has
been spotted in Scotland.

I was walking
through Aberdeen Airport,

listening to the cabinet
meeting on the one hand,

I think I had to say something,

whilst a father and son were doing
a selfie with me on the other.

It was all rather odd way of
carrying out public business.

After ministers had
been expressly told

Parliament would not be closed down,

some of the cabinet were stunned.

I couldn't believe it when I heard
the news of prorogation because,

you know, in politics,
people very rarely say things to you

that are directly untrue.

Essentially, you're telling us
that Dominic Cummings lied to you?

Yes. It was something
I didn't forget.

While the Queen was
on holiday at Balmoral,

another rule was broken -

"Do not involve the monarch
in a bitter political mess."

The list of things you must
not do is cause a problem...

..cause a problem for the
Palace is number one, like,

absolutely number one,
you don't do that.

I think that was the first time
I really properly understood

that there wasn't a limit, at all,
to what they would do in order

to make sure that the UK
left the EU as soon as possible.

And Downing Street was well aware
shutting Parliament would push

the Conservative Party to the limit,

even causing trouble with the
Prime Minister's own brother.

Jo Johnson called me up and said,
"How bad do you think this is?"

And I said, "We are like
the frog being boiled,

"we are settling for something

"and each time it's slightly more.
It's very bad."

And he said, "Yeah, I agree."

An hour later, he resigned

and I thought, "He moved quickly."

So then I had already planned
on resigning as well

and I resigned that weekend.

And it's been an honour
to be MP for Orpington

and a minister
under three governments,

but it's time to move on
and I've got to get to work.

Smashing political
convention was one thing.

Crashing into the law,
something else.

Number Ten advisers had
stewed over the plan for months,

but the Government's own chief
lawyer, with a seat in cabinet,

well, no-one asked him -

a sign of the level of secrecy

and wilful
controversy over the idea.

I'd had no opportunity to advise
on the means of taking the decision,

on the reasons why such a
decision might lawfully be taken...

..on the likely outcome should
the decision

be challenged in the court.

And thereafter, the rest is history.

History that saw the
highest court ruling

on whether the Government

had broken the law by
closing down the Commons.

So we're waiting for the
judgment of the Supreme Court.

Here we go. Here we go. Here we go.

..that the decision
to advise Her Majesty

to prorogue Parliament was unlawful.

SHE GASPS

That is absolutely amazing.

So it's basically...

She said it was unlawful,
so it never happened.

It's like it didn't happen.

Someone just texted me, saying,

"We have officially
imploded as a nation."

Number Ten, privately, had always
known there was a chance

the courts would say no,

but some ministers were
only too happy to attack

the judges themselves.

That judgment was deeply
politicised,

was one of the worst
judgments that our courts

have given in recent years.

Baroness Hale simply did
politicise the judiciary.

Her behaviour was disgraceful.

I remember sitting at the
Labour Party Conference

in the cafe there,

listening on my earpiece to
Lady Hale deliver that judgment.

And that showed the
British constitution working

because check and balance,

it's what distinguishes
democracies from other countries,

where whoever is in government
can do whatever they like.

We tested our institutions nearly to
destruction,

but thank God we did actually get
through that test

of our constitution with it still
working.

Just about. Well, yeah, just about.

We just about got through it and I
don't ever want to do it again.

Take back Parliament!

Yet the court's decision
wouldn't stop Boris Johnson.

Controversy was the
oxygen of his Number Ten.

Every time he was thwarted,
he could claim more loudly

that Brexit was being
deliberately blocked

and, every time,
that meant he could argue

more drastic action was required.

Institutional memory was
basically thrown overboard

in the summer of 2019

and it all became
tremendously fraught.

I and 21 of my colleagues
were summarily ejected

from the party for the offence of
failing to vote for the Government

on a three-line whip,

an offence which the
Prime Minister had committed

many, many times during the course
of the Theresa May Government.

An incredible hypocrisy
by Boris Johnson.

Do you remember who called you?

It was the Chief Whip.

And what did they say?

"You're out."

MPs with decades of experience,

former chancellors, like Ken Clarke,
and even Churchill's grandson,

they were all kicked out
when they didn't toe the line.

The removal of the whip
was a temporary expedient

until Brexit was dealt with.

I don't think it was seen
as saying that Ken Clarke

was not a Conservative,
for example.

It was saying that he
had broken a serious piece

of party discipline and
therefore the whip was removed.

It's absolutely extraordinary

the way the journey
became so radicalised.

By the end of 2019, when
Boris Johnson is Prime Minister,

it becomes unacceptable

to oppose a no deal Brexit.

It became illegitimate
to be a Conservative

and to be against no deal.

Now, if you told
people that in 2016,

either Leavers or Remainers,
they wouldn't have believed you.

Against Boris Johnson's wishes,

Parliament did pass
a law to stop the UK

leaving the EU without a deal.

But Dominic Cummings' response
inside Number Ten,

"Breaking the law? Bring it on."

It became a bit undignified
between me and Dom, with me saying,

"Well, you can't break the law."
And him saying, "Well, we can."

He was so determined,

because of the strategic advantage,
to just say,

if the Prime Minister has
to be taken away in handcuffs

on the streets of Downing Street
because we've broken the law

to leave the EU on time,

which is what the country wants,
then I'm not bothered by that.

But that's an extraordinary scene
that you just paint a picture of.

The Chief of Staff is arguing
you can break the law

and that's OK,
for political reasons.

You're arguing that it's
probably best if the Government

doesn't break the law.

Yeah. It was...it was surreal.

Everybody was out of lane
and not playing reasonably.

It just escalated really,
really quickly.

Next time, control and chaos
under Dominic Cummings...

At best, it was like
having two Prime Ministers.

I think that what I did
was actually reasonable.

..as Boris Johnson's
Downing Street implodes.

Sounds like maybe not a revolution,
but a revolution within the system.

It was different from
anything that went before.