Tim Shipman - Fall Out - A Year of Political Mayhem

While people have behaved with conviction as well as ambition they have not always behaved well. I have known Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill for a decade. If I have highlighted some of the extremes of their characters as they were experienced by others, I can only say my own contacts with them have almost always been positive. Both are dedicated public servants and – away from the stresses of office – charming company. If they did not always seem so to colleagues, it is worth remembering that all the best political operators I have known – Damian McBride, Dominic Cummings and Alastair Campbell among them – have been divisive figures.

At HarperCollins I am deeply indebted to the incomparable Arabella Pike, whose image will adorn the next edition of the Illustrated Oxford Dictionary alongside the word ‘sangfroid’. I hope she persuades David Cameron to file quicker than I did. Iain Hunt and Robert Lacey dealt with a mountain of words with similar forbearance. I’m also grateful to Marianne Tatepo, who sorted the pictures and much else besides and the legendary Helen Ellis. My agent, Victoria Hobbs, and all at A. M. Heath kept up my morale at key moments.

Special thanks must go again to my Sancho Panza, Gabriel Pogrund, who contributed acute reporting, several insightful interviews and the fastest transcription services in the West. Hannah McGrath let me see unpublished material from election night. I am also grateful to both old comrades – George Greenwood, Harriet Marsden and Oliver Milne – and new – Sebastien Ash, Megan Baynes, Isabelle Boulert, Tony Diver, Caitlin Doherty, Emily Hawkins, Anna Hollingsworth, Michael Mander, Conor Matchett, Holly Pyne and Josh Stein – for their help in turning more than one hundred hours of interviews into seven hundred thousand words of transcripts. I’m grateful to Natasha Clark for the introductions to such a keen young team.

At the Sunday Times , I am indebted to Martin Ivens, Sarah Baxter and Ben Preston for offering space to the political reporting on which this book was built. Ray Wells was generous with his time sourcing the pictures. There is no better wingman in covering Brexit than Bojan Pancevski, the king of the Brussels correspondents and no wiser partner in crime than Caroline Wheeler, who held the fort when this book took over. Richard Kerbaj helped with the fallout from the terrorist attacks. Elsewhere in Westminster, I’m grateful to Jim Waterson for guiding me through the digital election battle and David Wooding for sharing a transcript.

My greatest debt remains to my family, particularly my amazing wife Charlotte, who have put up with more absences than anyone should have to endure – and to Kate and Michael Todman for indulging a monosyllabic house guest for the second summer in succession.

Tim Shipman

Westminster, Preggio, Camerata, San Nicolo,Church Knowle, Studland and Blackheath

July–October 2017

2016

23 Jun – Britain votes to leave the European Union by a margin of 52 per cent to 48 per cent

29 Jun – Other 27 member states agree a ‘no negotiations without notification’ stance on Brexit talks and Article 50

13 Jul – Theresa May becomes prime minister and pledges to create ‘a country that works for everyone’

7 Sep – May insists she will not give a ‘running commentary’ on Brexit negotiations

24 Sep – Jeremy Corbyn re-elected as Labour Party leader

30 Sep – Carlos Ghosn, Nissan’s CEO, says he could scrap potential new investment in its Sunderland plant

2 Oct – In Brexit speech to party conference, May says she will trigger Article 50 before the end of March and create a Great Repeal Bill to replace the 1972 European Communities Act

5 Oct – In main speech to party conference, May criticises ‘citizens of nowhere’

6 Oct – Keir Starmer appointed shadow Brexit secretary

27 Oct – Nissan says it will build its Qashqai and X-Trail models at its Sunderland plant, protecting 7,000 jobs

2 Nov – At Spectator awards dinner May compares Boris Johnson to a dog that was put down

3 Nov – High Court rules that only Parliament not the government has the power to trigger Article 50

4 Nov – Daily Mail calls the judges ‘enemies of the people’

8 Nov – Donald Trump elected the 45th president of the United States

14 Nov – FT reveals the EU wants a €60 billion exit bill from Britain

15 Nov – Boris Johnson tells a Czech paper the UK will ‘probably’ leave the customs union and is reprimanded by May

19 Nov – Johnson accused of turning up to a cabinet Brexit meeting with the wrong papers

20 Nov – Sixty pro-Brexit Tory MPs demand Britain leaves the single market

21 Nov – Trump calls for Nigel Farage to be made British ambassador to Washington

7 Dec – MPs back government amendment to opposition day debate saying the government must set out its Brexit plans but also that Article 50 should be triggered by the end of March

8 Dec – Johnson calls Saudi Arabia a ‘puppeteer’ in the Middle East, sparking a rebuke from Downing Street and fears he will resign

11 Dec – Fiona Hill’s ‘Trousergate’ texts to Nicky Morgan, banning her from Downing Street, are published

15 Dec – BBC reveals that Sir Ivan Rogers has privately warned ministers a post-Brexit trade deal might take ten years

2017

4 Jan – Ivan Rogers resigns

10 Jan – Corbyn announces a wage cap in his ‘Trump relaunch’

17 Jan – In speech at Lancaster House May announces Britain will seek a hard Brexit leaving the single market, the customs union and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. She says ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’

24 Jan – Supreme Court votes 8–3 to uphold the High Court ruling

25 Jan – Downing Street says Brexit plans will be set out in a white paper

27 Jan – May meets and holds hands with Trump at the White House

1 Feb – Article 50 bill passes second reading by 498 votes to 114

2 Feb – White paper published echoing the Lancaster House speech

7 Feb – Government defeats amendment 110 which would have given Parliament the right to a vote on Brexit following a deal with Team 2019 Tory rebels

9 Feb – Article 50 bill passes Commons by 494 votes to 122

16 Feb – May’s aides hold strategy meeting at Chequers for the 2020 election

17 Feb – Tony Blair makes a speech urging Britons to ‘rise up’ against Brexit

7 Mar – House of Lords amends Article 50 bill to guarantee a ‘meaningful vote’ on Brexit deal. Lord Heseltine sacked

8 Mar – In his spring budget, Philip Hammond raises National Insurance contributions for the self-employed

13 Mar – Nicola Sturgeon confirms she will ask for permission to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence, playing into Ruth Davidson’s hands

14 Mar – Article 50 bill finally gets royal assent

15 Mar – May forces Hammond into humiliating U-turn on National Insurance

17 Mar – George Osborne named editor of the Evening Standard , overshadowing May’s Plan for Britain

29 Mar – May signs letter triggering Article 50

18 Apr – May announces that she is calling a general election

26 Apr – May dines with Jean-Claude Juncker at Downing Street. Details of the meal leak and are blamed on his chief of staff Martin Selmayr

4 May – In local elections Tories make big gains

10 May – Labour manifesto leaks

16 May – Labour manifesto published

18 May – Conservative manifesto published, includes plans for a controversial social care policy

21 May – Polls show Tory support ‘dropping off a cliff’. Lynton Crosby says care could lose the election