Three days of speeches in Birmingham have given us a much clearer picture of the state of Theresa May’s Tory party
Theresa May’s speech on Wednesday may turn out to be the most revealing of the party conference but after three days quite a lot has already emerged about the state of the Conservative party. Here are 10 things we’ve learned.
1: Brexit will be at the harder end of the scale. This was signalled in Theresa May’s speech on Sunday and – judging not least by the market reaction – it is the most important takeaway from the whole conference. Ministers still seem uncertain as to exactly what they want, but the Norway/Switzerland models (soft Brexit) are out and, although May is not planning to simply walk away and slam the door (the hardest possible Brexit) she will prioritise getting control over immigration over single market membership. Brexiters strongly object to the terms hard/soft on the grounds that they are loaded, because hard implies bad (clean/dirty is one alternative formula they prefer), but this terminology is not unreasonable. Economists believe disengaging from the single market will have negative consequences.
Related: Conservative conference: Theresa May’s speech – Politics live
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Sig Nordal 