Original subtitles

CLAPPER LOADER: OK. One, take one.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

I will shortly leave the job

that it has been the honour of my life to hold.

The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last.

The hardest thing you have to do as a chief of staff

is to tell your boss, "The game is up."

So, I am today announcing that I will resign

as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party.

'It was incredibly frustrating.'

There were still things that I wanted to do.

I do so with no ill will

but with enormous and enduring gratitude

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

'I was frustrated with myself

'because my voice only caught right at the very end of the speech.'

My, then, chief of staff, Gavin Barwell,

did say to me when I went in...

I said, "I shouldn't have done that."

And I sort of slightly blew my top and fairly robustly said

that for two years I'd encouraged her

to show a bit more of her emotion

and what she's actually like as a person.

And she absolutely should not be apologising for being a bit upset.

And I just said to him, "That's not how the press will see it."

that was the one thing they focused on.

PENNY MORDAUNT: That was a very brutal day.

Westminster at its most brutal.

The first female prime minister also left office

with tears in her eyes.

It became impossible for me.

And I think that, ultimately,

there were quite a few of my colleagues

who probably didn't quite trust a Remainer delivering Brexit.

They wanted a Brexiteer to deliver it.

I think one thing about Theresa is that she's incredibly shy

and doesn't like the job of communicating,

doesn't like the job of selling.

Oh, the entire campaign was a total disaster from day one.

INTERVIEWER: Is it a disadvantage in a leading politician

to be an introvert? Yes.

The no's to the left - 432.

This is not Brexit.

Under Chequers, you lose control.

So, the no's have it. The no's have it.

GAVIN: He phoned up to say he was resigning

but wasn't quite able to get the words out of his mouth.

In the end, she had said to say, "Look, I'm in a bit of a rush.

"Are you telling me you're resigning?"

INTERVIEWER: At the time,

did you consider it a personal betrayal?

I don't use terms like that.

I think history will remember Theresa

as a dedicated public servant

who...

was probably in the wrong job at the wrong time.

Given what's followed... SHE CHUCKLES

..her reputation is enhanced.

I mean, I didn't know at the time

that truth and decency wasn't always going to be part

of a prime minister's make-up.

I don't miss it in the sense

that life is a little easier these days.

And I don't think you realise the stress until you step down,

and then you recognise the stress that you were under.

That's 500. That's 500?

Right, I might take a break at 500.

NARRATOR: Theresa May has stepped away from front-line politics.

But she has written an account of her time in office

and granted us exclusive access to film with her.

Brilliant. I mean, this is just mind-boggling.

Told mainly from inside the Conservative Party,

by critics as well as friends,

this is the story of her fateful political career at the top.

Last one! Wahey! Wahey!

Well done.

To understand Theresa May's approach to politics,

it helps to understand her roots.

Welcome to the world of her constituency...

and her kitchen.

This is a book that Philip gave me at Christmas.

It's different recipes from...

It's called Food Of France's Borderlands.

I do have rather a lot of cookery books.

Of course, Alain Roux has a restaurant in my constituency.

And also in my constituency, Caldesi.

I've got several of their cookery books, Italian.

Really, really good.

INTERVIEWER: So, where does the interest in cooking stem from?

My grandmother was quite a good cook

but a very sort of basic cook.

I used to enjoy some of her puddings, particularly.

My mother didn't have that great an interest in cooking.

So maybe that's why I started having such an interest,

sort of thought I'd take over

My father was a clergyman.

I think it's true to say

that my parents always voted Conservative,

but my father was very clear

that, as a vicar, he represented everybody in his parish.

So I think that sense that his was a job

where he was there for other people

was something that was sort of instilled in me.

There was always that sense that I could be what I wanted to be,

that there was nothing that should hold me back

simply because I was a girl.

Looking back, I feel I should have been

just that little bit more confident.

Perhaps "less shy" would be a better description.

She goes to Oxford in the mid 1970s,

where women are still something of a novelty.

There she meets her husband, Philip.

Well, we were both interested in politics.

But I have to say, I think the attraction

was rather more than just the politics.

Theresa and Philip get married. He goes into the City.

She, via the Bank of England and a spell as a local councillor

in south London, into national politics,

standing in Maidenhead during Tony Blair's 1997 landslide win.

Thank you. Would you like a balloon?

Theresa Mary May has been duly elected

to serve as a member for the said constituency.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CHEERING

NEWSREADER: 'Tony Blair's majority

'is the largest ever won by a Labour leader.'

'Do you think they'll send you to charm school

'or image-making classes?'

'You mean I need to go to charm school?

'No, I don't think so.'

By now, both her parents have died.

It's one of the great sadnesses is

that neither of them was able to see me as a Member of Parliament.

When the Conservatives regain power under David Cameron,

she is made Home Secretary -

one of the most senior jobs in the government.

By now, she has earned a reputation as a Tory moderniser.

But she remains something of an outsider.

I don't think she was part of the boys' curry Friday night

or whatever it was that they had.

but I don't think she was necessarily part of that gang.

Nor was she always seen as the most collegiate of colleagues.

I found her style, I would say, very uncompromising.

I mean, she was completely obviously on top of her brief,

but, you know, wanted things her way and only her way.

And then I'm sure, actually, that,

when she eventually became prime minister,

that many of her cabinet sort of thought,

well, this is how SHE did things.

You know, there was a sort of lack of teamwork.

So maybe that's... You know, that set the tone for them.

CORRESPONDENT: 'Polite applause was about as friendly as it got here.

'The Home Secretary and the Police Federation

'don't exactly see eye-to-eye.'

Theresa May was not afraid to make enemies,

even among the Tories' natural allies.

I do not want to have to impose change on you,

because I want you to show the public

that you want to change.

When she was Home Secretary, she had that extraordinary speech she made

Home Secretary, I believe you're a disgrace.

APPLAUSE

Shameful and dishonourable.

When you're appointed Home Secretary, it's kind of...

Well, the good news is you're Home Secretary.

The bad news, you're speaking to

the Police Federation conference next week.

But her biggest challenge as Home Secretary

is to deliver David Cameron's pledge to cut immigration numbers.

This is not just about making the UK

a more hostile place for illegal migrants,

it is also about fairness.

Underpinning her immigration policy

is the so-called "hostile environment".

Particularly controversial

is a scheme introduced in several London boroughs

to deter illegal immigrants.

White vans with the caption, "Go home or face arrest."

I thought that that particular approach with the vans,

the messaging, was just a wrong approach

because I think it's damaging to community relations,

and I think there were better ways to tackle this issue.

As Home Secretary, obviously I take responsibility for what was done

within my department. But I think what the...

And it was wrong, and we stopped it.

We realised after a fairly short period of time

that we needed to stop that.

It was a policy that would come back to haunt her as prime minister.

REPORTER: This is a misleading bus. That's what goes to Brussels.

Totally right. That is what goes to Brussels a week.

Think what we could do with another £350 million.

What changes everything in British politics,

and for Theresa May, is the Brexit Referendum.

Well, I think, from everything I've seen as Home Secretary,

that we will be more secure

if we stay within the European Union.

She's a Remainer but not a prominent one.

'I thought, during the referendum campaign,

'she was incredibly quiet.'

And if I think back to why...

But I think maybe even then, she was probably, you know,

I'd actually say, smart enough to sort of think,

"Actually, you know what?

"This might go horribly wrong for David Cameron.

"He might end up resigning.

"And then I'm gonna go for the leadership.

"And if I stay out of it and sort of sit on the fence,

"then I might be a more appealing candidate to both sides."

But the core of the campaign,

the centre, including Number 10,

didn't want immigration to be the issue

for the Remain side of the campaign.

And of course, I was Home Secretary.

The British people have spoken, and the answer is, "We're out".

CHEERING It's a victory for ordinary people.

I believe we now have a glorious opportunity.

I think it took everyone by surprise.

And not just the result, but then David's decision to stand down.

I hadn't expected that to happen.

I was at home, I think,

and suddenly, you know, the news came,

and it said David was coming out.

And he came out with Samantha.

And I thought, "Oh. I've got a feeling

"I know what this is going to be."

But it was quite a shock.

But I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain

that steers our country to its next destination.

is this something that you want to pursue?

People around me spoke to me about it.

And whether, you know, I would throw my hat in the ring.

And, well, as you know, I did.

APPLAUSE

She was not the bookies' favourite. But he didn't last long.

Having consulted colleagues

and in view of the circumstances in Parliament,

I have concluded that person cannot be me.

With Boris Johnson out of the race,

Andrea Leadsom and Theresa May

are the last two candidates standing.

But after a controversial interview in The Times,

in which Andrea Leadsom seems to suggest

her rival is less qualified for the job

because she doesn't have children,

she apologises and withdraws from the contest.

I thought it was an unfortunate thing to say.

Hurtful?

Erm, I mean, it's difficult

because obviously we don't have children,

haven't been able to have children.

The Right Honourable Mrs Theresa May is the only remaining candidate.

The process is now that I must formally confirm

that Mrs May is the new leader of the Conservative Party.

'So, the tradition is

'that the Prime Minister goes through the famous door

'and walks down the corridor, clapped in by all the staff.

'Then you end up in the Cabinet Room,

'which is at the end of that corridor.'

And there was definitely that moment of "what next?"

And no-one really knew quite what to say.

Is there a bit of you thinking, "Oh, my God, how did this happen?

"I wasn't expecting this, and it's almost accidental

"that it's happened."

Well, I put myself up for the leadership.

I'd had to give thought

to whether I really felt it was right for me to do that.

The decisions that we take around this table

affect people's day-to-day lives.

And we have the challenge of Brexit, and Brexit...

From the start of her time in Number 10,

the shadow of Brexit looms.

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

As a remainer, the Prime Minister is careful

to include prominent Brexiteers in her Cabinet.

BANGING ON TABLE

'What were the particular qualities

'that the Foreign Secretary brought to the job?'

Well, he'd led the Brexit campaign.

I think it was important that he had a key role

within the Cabinet and was sitting around that table.

In a way, Theresa May was left holding the baby,

was not going to lead us into delivering it.

She'd become leader of the party without, really, a contest.

And so she felt the need to reassure Brexiteers

that she could be trusted to deliver on this issue.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Having voted to leave,

I know that the public will soon expect to see on the horizon

the point at which Britain does formally leave

the European Union.

So, let me be absolutely clear.

There will be no unnecessary delays in invoking Article 50.

I think there was enormous pressure on her

to trigger Article 50 before she perhaps was ready to do so.

Brexit means Brexit.

And we're going to make a success of it.

It wasn't about me, as a Remainer, going out there

in order to persuade people that I was going to do Brexit.

It was my absolutely firm belief that the people had voted,

and we should deliver what the people had voted for.

The position held for now, but, as the prime minister,

Theresa May has to win friends and influence people abroad too.

Her biggest challenge: the new American President.

'I think the one word I would use for Donald Trump is unpredictable.'

And obviously, the relationship

between the Prime Minister and President varies

according to the personalities of the individuals.

But you want to have some certainty

about how somebody is going to react to something.

And unpredictability is difficult to deal with.

And it's a great honour to have Winston Churchill back.

Well, thank you, Mr President. We're very pleased.

We had a meeting in the Oval Office.

And then we had the press conference in the White House afterwards

and returned to the ambassador's residence

and sat down and thought, "Oh, that seemed to go very well."

We knew we were walking a bit of a tightrope,

but were rather pleased that we'd pulled it off.

And then Theresa said, "Yes...

"but he did hold my hand at one point."

And we said, "What?"

And she said, "Yeah, he held my hand."

And we said, "OK, did anyone get that on camera?"

She said, "Yes."

We literally were just walking along, and he said,

"There's a little slope round the corner, take care."

And I thought, "Well, it's fine.

"My heels aren't that high, I'll be fine."

And next thing I knew, he was holding my hand as we walked down.

And of course, I wasn't able to reclaim my hand

before we got the television cameras of the world upon us.

Sure enough, the press captured the moment with relish.

The following year,

the Prime Minister would face a sterner diplomatic test.

NEWSREADER: Good evening, Scotland Yard's top anti-terrorist officer

has revealed it was a nerve agent

which poisoned former Russian double agent and his daughter.

Once I knew who the individual was, Sergei Skripal,

then, of course, the... you start thinking,

"Well, maybe there's something more that lies behind it."

We needed to get, to be effective, international support

before we... moved against the Russian state.

It was no good, just the UK expelling a number of people.

We needed other countries to do the same.

So, she had an initial conversation with President Trump,

which is probably the most disheartening conversation

we had with him in... the entire period, and...

"And what are the Europeans doing?"

He is always a little wary of... of

just saying, "America will stand alongside you."

And that's different, of course,

hence my comment about unpredictability.

and the dangers of not

clearly deterring this behaviour from Putin.

President Trump, then, to be fair to him,

took the most robust option of the ones

that have been offered up to him by his national security community.

Despite the Russians continuing to deny any part in the poisoning...

President Trump expels 60 Russian diplomats from the US.

She'd been Home Secretary for a number of years,

she understood these issues very, very well.

But the decision that would come to define her premiership

was whether to call a general election.

Her close advisers were in favour -

to increase her parliamentary majority,

and to get Brexit done.

Myself, Nick Timothy, Fiona Hill, and Joanna Penn,

one evening, after Downing Street

had been sort of largely emptied for the day,

went up to the flat the Prime Minister lived in.

And over a glass of wine and bowls of crisps,

sat with Theresa, and with her husband Philip...

and went through the arguments.

I think it's fair to say that,

erm, Theresa was pretty sceptical of the idea.

And so was Philip, actually.

It's really difficult to understand Theresa May

without understanding Philip

and the critical nature of that relationship.

They are... incredibly close couple.

For a decision like that, you need to be somewhere...

where you are sort of away from

the day-to-day of Number 10 Downing Street.

I thought about the 2017 general election

when we were walking in Wales... So...

..that's what I was saying about it enabled you

just to have some time to think about things.

And if the polls were to be believed,

there was a possibility of getting a bigger majority.

APPLAUSE

And the choice...

is between five years of strong and stable leadership...

..strong and stable leadership...

..strong and stable leadership

to take us through Brexit and beyond.

I made some mistakes during the election campaign.

I'm not sure that phrase was one of those.

I think it was there to draw a contrast, with Jeremy Corbyn,

who was the then leader of the Labour Party.

Oh, the entire campaign was a total disaster...

from day one.

She and her team around her decided early on

that it's gonna be a sort of presidential-style campaign.

It's all about Theresa May -

not the Conservatives, but about Theresa May.

It seems to me that prime ministers

are either good at campaigning or at governing.

The one after her was a very good campaigner and a hopeless governor.

And a vote for any other party

would be a vote for a weak and failing Jeremy Corbyn.

I believe in being out on the doorsteps.

I'm not a natural... stand with a factory background,

talking to a group of workers.

She was very frustrated. And I remember just thinking,

"Why don't you do something about it?

"You're the Prime Minister. Why don't you tell them?

"Why didn't you change it?"

And I can only blame myself for that.

The low point of the campaign comes after the manifesto launch,

and the introduction of the so-called dementia tax

to deal with the unsolved question

of how to fund the ever-rising social care bill.

The so-called dementia tax was very unpopular on doorsteps

and people were frightened of it, they thought it was going to mean

they would lose their houses. So, they opposed it.

After a hostile press response,

Theresa May is forced into a U-turn.

But to make things worse, she then denies she's made one.

Nothing has changed.

We are offering a long-term solution

for the sustainability of social care for the future.

And I think that...

drove a coach and horses through her brand, really.

She was somebody who was... seen, until that point,

as quite sort of authentic and honest and...

erm... all those things.

And the moment there was a dissonance

between what she was saying,

I think people looked at that and thought,

"I'm not convinced by this person."

As election day approaches, the strain is beginning to show.

What's the naughtiest thing you ever did?

Oh, goodness me.

Erm, well, I suppose the...

Gosh. I... Do you know, I'm not quite sure...

There must have been a moment when...

Nobody is... Nobody is ever perfectly behaved, are they?

I mean, you know, I have to confess, when me and my friends

sort of used to run through the fields of wheat,

the farmers weren't too pleased about that.

I think there was a bit of a... heart sink.

Well, I think probably the naughtiest thing I've done

is answering that question.

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

Note, they don't have an overall majority at this stage.

# Oh, Jeremy Corbyn... #

..the young voters who'd turned out in force for Labour...

# Oh, Jeremy Corbyn. #

Theresa May could have been a very consequential,

transformative prime minister.

Had she been successful in that election...

the country, now, would be in a much better place.

And I was angry about it. I probably still am.

Are you resigning, Prime Minister?

People started blaming other people.

And she, quite rightly, had to get rid of -

sounds a brutal term, but I mean, that is politics -

her two special advisers,

who had taken a very strong leadership role

in the manifesto and in the campaign.

Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, her joint chiefs of staff,

resign within 48 hours.

REPORTER: Any comments, Nick and Fiona?

Are you out of a job?

Obviously you have to speak to the individuals concerned.

You have to think about the wider picture.

It is difficult when you've been...

working with people over a period of time, but...

there we are, that was a decision that I made.

It's interesting because a lot of people have a lot of love for her.

Erm... but I don't think she necessarily appreciated that,

she was very... it was very professional relationship

rather than... anything more than that.

And, I think sometimes she struggled to sort of relate

on that sort of emotional... level.

Within days of the election disaster,

the Prime Minister's ability to "relate on an emotional level"

was once again put to the test.

999. There's a dedicated line for this incident.

I went in that morning,

and we drove over and met with fire officers

who were at the base of the tower,

who she thanked for everything that they done.

They were very upset.

The fire was still smouldering above us.

It was a devastating scene.

And then we returned to Number 10.

There was a decision to be made

about whether she should meet with some of the survivors,

families, community groups.

And the advice from the Metropolitan Police

was that she shouldn't do so.

And we got that call badly wrong.

We served her very badly there

because it played on the perceptions that people already had

from the election campaign,

that, you know, she wasn't comfortable

with that kind of face-to-face contact.

I should've gone and met victims.

I recognise that.

CROWD SHOUTING

The next day, we went to St Clement's Church,

which is at the foot of the tower,

and we met with residents of the tower

and the surrounding estate.

The tower block is more strong and stable than

that woman's government. She's racist.

She was hiding in the background with the police,

and now she wants to come round with the people. It's too late.

ELIZABETH SANDERSON: 'By this stage,

'the atmosphere was very, very, very difficult.

'It was very hot. Hot, sunny day.

'And it felt that we were on the verge of riots.'

One of the Grenfell survivors meeting the Prime Minister that day

was Nick Burton, who lived on the 19th floor of the tower,

but who'd miraculously managed to escape the fire

with his wife, Pilly, who suffered from dementia.

And I thought, "OK, this is... The Prime Minister's here."

We sat down more in, like, a circle.

And I was directly facing Theresa.

I truly believe that she was very emotional

and very kind of... really opened to what had just gone on.

And then we heard a lot of noise outside.

And so, the community, erm...

..got the knowledge

that she was actually inside the church hall here.

And they were chanting and upset.

Theresa didn't want to stop it short

until it finally got to the point where the protection team said,

"Right, I'm sorry. That's it."

'We opened the door.

'People were kicking the car,

'and we managed to get her into the car and away.'

To see her welling up at the various points in the meeting,

to most of us there who... It doesn't quite fit the picture.

it sort of gets to you.

But, on the other hand, because of the role you're playing,

It's about those practical things

that need to be... that need to be put in place.

'In the statement in the Commons, she said,

' "I will be there long after the cameras have left." '

Still to this day,

if any of them call me from any of the different groups

and say, "We'd like to speak to Theresa about X,"

then I go and tell Theresa, and she says,

"Yes," you know, "what can I do to help?"

But there was nothing to be done to save Nick Burton's wife, Pilly,

who never left hospital after the trauma of the fire.

It was just very difficult for her to understand,

you know, what happened.

All the time, "I wanna go home, I wanna go home, I wanna go home."

I said, "We haven't got a home."

And she counts as the 72nd and final victim?

Yeah, she had a heart attack.

And then she was on life support for a while.

'And then they just said,

"Sorry, there's no coming back." '

And then turned the life support off.

So she's number 72.

Thank you very much, Glastonbury.

Thank you for inviting me here today.

After the disastrous election,

the pressure is on Theresa May

to put her premiership back on track.

We actually spent a lot of time together talking about that speech

and working on it in a way that we probably haven't

on any other speech over the years.

Then, one day, we were having, actually, a casual conversation,

and she suddenly mentioned that...

one of her ancestors had been a sort of charlady,

sort of working below stairs.

And that's where she'd come from.

And I said, "Well, that's really interesting."

And she said, "Is it?" LAUGHS

"Yes, that's interesting. We can work with that.

"That informs a bit of your thinking."

The issues one's dealing with are so serious

that I don't naturally put personal information into speeches.

I think to be a successful politician in...

this day and age, you do need to be able to bring

some emotional intelligence to the role.

Each new generation in our country

should be able to build a better future.

REPORTER: 'It was all going to plan. But then...'

Other than Grenfell,

that was probably the most difficult moment, for me,

to sit in that conference hall

on a speech that we all knew was a very important moment for her

in terms of trying to re-establish her authority.

'And then to find the combination of a comedian handing her

'a sort of P45.'

Boris, job's done.

'Some individual was able to approach the stage

'and present me with a P45 and claim that was from Boris Johnson.'

I was about to talk about somebody I'd like to give a P45 to,

and that's Jeremy Corbyn. CHEERING

My voice went wrong.

Why... COUGHS

Why we will nev...

COUGHS Excuse me.

And you would just kind of think,

"Will nothing go right for this person?"

I hope you noticed that, ladies and gentlemen.

The Chancellor giving something away free.

LAUGHTER

'The trouble is it's one of those classic things, isn't it?

'You know, it happens in everyday life.

'One thing goes wrong,

'and then, suddenly, a whole string of things go wrong.'

Shows what good the Chancellor's cough sweet is.

LAUGHTER

'The letters on the stand behind me started falling off.'

It was a speech that, sadly, many people will remember,

but I wish I didn't have to remember.

'Coming ashore were wives and children

'of men already working here.'

# Try so hard to fulfil

# My destiny

# Ooh... #

Theresa May's experience as Home Secretary

could come back to plague her.

Especially the controversial hostile environment policy.

Ever since their arrival at the end of the Second World War,

at the invitation of the British Government,

the Windrush generation

had been given the status of British citizens -

though they hadn't always been issued the paperwork to prove it.

Over the years, and especially after

Theresa May's Immigration Acts of 2014 and '16,

the rules were tightened up.

# You know, it tore up my soul. #

It was an attempt to try to ensure

that we could better identify those who were here illegally

and... and take action.

It is right that governments act

against people who are here illegally.

# Early morning

# Waking up before the sunrise... #

Michael Braithwaite was a victim of this hostile environment policy.

He'd been born in Barbados and arrived in the UK in 1960

as a nine-year-old.

You know, my whole life has been here.

I lived... We lived the British way. We do everything British.

For 15 years, he'd been working in a secondary school in North London

as a special needs teaching assistant.

As part of the hostile environment policy,

he's asked out of the blue by the Education Authority

to prove his right to remain in the UK.

# To fulfil my destiny... #

He said to me, well, you don't have a biometric card,

and you don't have a British citizenship.

So the only possible thing I could say

that you are deemed an illegal.

An illegal person.

And I was sitting there, like...

Inside, I was shaking.

My whole being was churning around on uncertainty of this situation.

He said to me,

"Look, I'll give you three months to sort out your status."

Three months.

I don't... I fully accept that for individuals

who were caught up in this, it was absolutely horrendous.

People who had...

committed to the United Kingdom, who were part of our society,

who had contributed to the life of our country,

were suddenly being told they shouldn't be here.

And obviously, that was absolutely wrong.

I got quite ill with the stress.

My headmaster signed me off cos he could see I was not...

There's no point me coming to work with this hammer in my head.

Michael then loses his job.

Though, by now, his story has been picked up by The Guardian

who run a series of exclusive reports on the scandal.

AMELIA GENTLEMAN: Michael Braithwaite

was incredibly disturbed to have lost the job

that he absolutely loved.

or a prison sentence.

This was after the second round of immigration changes

introduced by Theresa May

that had made it very, very worrying for employers to hire anybody

who was unable to prove their immigration status.

The pressure builds on Theresa May

as the Commonwealth Heads of State arrive in London

for their biennial conference.

They were conscious of the real suffering

that a lot of people

who had been born in their countries

were experiencing as a result of this scandal.

And they were furious.

I take this issue very seriously.

The Home Secretary apologised at the House of Commons yesterday

for any anxiety caused.

And I want to apologise to you today.

The Home Secretary at the time is Amber Rudd,

who'd inherited the job and the hostile environment regime

from her predecessor, Theresa May.

AMBER RUDD: Terrible stories. Terrible stories of injustice.

And it was right that I had to resign over it.

It was a shocking miscarriage.

INTERVIEWER: You didn't feel for a moment

you had been effectively made the scapegoat

for what were actually, in practice, her policies?

No, I didn't feel that I was the scapegoat.

I felt that I was the Secretary of State in charge

when this series of terrible events were revealed.

And so I should resign.

AMELIA GENTLEMAN: There are two scenarios.

Either Theresa May was oblivious, in which case,

she wasn't really on top of her brief,

or she did know,

but she didn't think that the kinds of people

who were likely to be affected by this policy,

wrongly, were people

who she particularly needed to worry about.

INTERVIEWER: Should it have been clearer earlier?

Should it have been clear to you, for instance,

whilst still Home Secretary?

Well, as you can imagine,

because of the impact that this had on individuals,

it is an issue where I've sort of asked myself and looked back.

Should we in the Home Office have had a greater sense

of trying to identify whether there were other people,

people who were going to get caught up in this way?

I don't believe that question was ever asked.

And that's what lay behind the problems.

And you were in charge of the Home Office at the time?

I was, and as Home Secretary, you take responsibility.

You're the captain of the ship.

If you don't know your structure or what's going to be implemented,

well, that means you really don't care.

I don't know how you can sleep at night cos I...

I still can't sleep at night properly,

and I'm not in your position.

Michael, who we spoke to,

thought you probably should have resigned.

I...

That may very well be...

May very well be Michael's... Michael's view.

And I'm sorry that this wasn't seen earlier,

and we weren't able to deal with it in an earlier stage.

I've heard that many times now, this word "sorry" being mentioned,

but it's a slap in the face.

Every time, it's a slap in the face.

How are you? SIMON: Very good.

How was your journey? Horrendous?

Not too bad, but at least I wasn't driving.

LAUGHTER

PHOTOGRAPHER: If can you look as though you know who Simon is.

LAUGHTER

And you're doing a documentary too, for ITV?

Yes. Good. Good.

Warts and all? LAUGHTER

Sadly, probably yes.

'This was your coin.

'This was your moment to shine, right?

'And then there was Brexit.

'Well, I was about to say. I thought you were going to say that, yes.'

I mean, there were a good number of my colleagues

who had either voted Remain or were Brexiteers, who said,

"We accept the need to compromise, and want to go through with it."

But you've got these two elements on either side

who took a different view, I'm afraid.

And it is a problem in politics today.

NARRATOR: In the end, it was Brexit that overshadowed everything else

during Theresa May's time in Number 10,

especially after the catastrophic 2017 general election.

The problem with that election

DAMIAN GREEN: There were clearly people

who were not necessarily predisposed to be particularly helpful

to the Prime Minister inside her Cabinet.

So that added to the gaiety of trying to keep them all on track.

Sadly, I have to say,

I think sometimes there are too many people sitting

around the Cabinet table who harbour ambitions

and often not too quietly either.

INTERVIEWER: Who do you have in mind?

I think you could look at any reports of politics

over recent years,

and you'll see plenty of reports of people,

in quotes, "jockeying for position".

Including your successor?

Erm... I don't normally comment on my successor.

Lack of trust around the Cabinet table about Brexit

breeds an atmosphere of suspicion

that the Prime Minister struggles to control.

She knew that there were people sitting around that Cabinet table

who couldn't wait to get out to leak the contents

of Cabinet meetings.

I think we made the joke at the time,

we may as well have live-streamed them

cos they got out very, very quickly.

Could I check you haven't picked up any papers from the table?

INDISTINCT CHATTER Thank you.

Can I just check you haven't got any papers?

To not have Cabinets leak,

you have to enable people around that table

to have a stake in the decisions that are made.

And if you don't allow that,

then that causes people to go off and do their own thing.

INTERVIEWER: Like Boris Johnson?

I know that he was very frustrated at many points

during that... that whole era.

We had a lot of leaks from Cabinet meetings,

so it was important to be careful.

rather than a participant.

And she would listen, poker face, just listen.

And I would be none the wiser when the meetings finish.

Quite often, she wouldn't even say anything.

And one of her staffers would say, "We'll get back to you."

INTERVIEWER: And did you emerge at the end knowing what she thought?

We very rarely knew what the Prime Minister thought.

It's not for the person in charge

or the person chairing that meeting to go in and just bombastically say,

"My view is X. You're all going to do it."

And particularly on a subject like this

where there was such sharply differing views.

And rightly, I brought those views around the table.

NARRATOR: By the summer of 2018,

it's time for the Prime Minister to reveal her hand.

After months of secrecy and negotiations with the EU,

she invites her Cabinet to Chequers,

including Boris Johnson, her Foreign Secretary,

and David Davis, her Brexit Secretary,

to get their approval for her Brexit plan.

What Chequers was about

And I would describe it as a compromise.

A compromise between there were some people

who wanted to see the UK stay in the single market

and, or, the customs union,

therefore, very close to the EU.

And there were others.

Boris Johnson latterly became an example of this,

who wanted to sort of break away

and have just a standard free trade agreement.

It was an awkward compromise to try and achieve that.

On the day of Chequers, even Boris Johnson was,

you know, telling everyone how brilliant, you know,

this deal was and what a masterstroke it was.

In detailed discussions today,

the Cabinet has agreed our collective position

on the future of our negotiations with the EU.

But this was evidently not the way

the more ardent Brexiteers saw the events of the day.

I think we all went there in good faith

to try and get the best outcome possible.

And actually, the Chequers document itself,

there were four paragraphs in it

that if you had made some small changes to,

you would have just kept more options open.

And that, indeed, was the preferred way forward

of David Davis at the time.

Halfway through the meeting, Gavin Barwell waved at me

and asked me to come outside of the Cabinet meeting with him.

We walked down the corridor, and we actually ended up in a room,

which turned out to be the Prime Minister's bedroom,

er... strangely enough.

And he said,

"What are those four paragraphs that we could change?"

So I talked him through it,

explained how that would just give you more options.

And he said, "We can't do that

"because she's already agreed the text with Merkel."

And I just left incredibly depressed because it...

it said to me that...

no matter what the goodwill and the effort

that was being made by colleagues

to help her get this to the best place,

it was futile.

I genuinely felt we'd accomplished something.

We've ended the day with a dinner.

And, you know, there were people standing up at the dinner

and expressing their wholehearted support...

including some of those who then resigned.

David rang me and said, "Oh, no. I've gotta go."

So, Chequers was a terrible day.

It was a blow because David was a serious Cabinet Minister.

He'd... He was a thoughtful Brexiteer,

and he'd done a good job in his department.

So I was sorry that he didn't feel able to carry on.

INTERVIEWER: And were you surprised when,

24 or so hours later, Boris Johnson resigned too?

I'm not inside Boris's mind,

but I think it was interesting that it was after David had resigned

that he then decided to resign.

REPORTER: Do you think the Prime Minister

can deliver a Brexit deal?

GAVIN BARWELL: Boris Johnson felt he had to

because he couldn't allow anyone else

to become the kind of leader of the sort of Eurosceptic wing

of the Tory Party.

So, there was this kind of absurd 25 minute conversation

between him and the Prime Minister.

In the end, she had said to him "Look, I'm in a bit of a rush.

"Are you actually telling me you're resigning?"

Boris Johnson in particular carried a lot of weight in the party.

He had a lot of the followers amongst both MPs and members.

And I think his resignation of the two was hugely significant.

CHEERING

Once the people who were opposed to Chequers within the party

had Boris as a leader,

the job was gonna become much more difficult.

And you had someone who wasn't just opposing the Brexit deal,

This is the moment to chuck Chequers...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

THEY SING

NARRATOR: By now, distractions from Brexit

were few and far between for the Prime Minister.

THEY SING

REPORTER: If you were a judge on Strictly Come Dancing,

how would you score your dancing this morning?

SHE LAUGHS

I suspect my dancing this morning

might not quite make it onto Strictly.

MUSIC: 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA

ELIZABETH: There is something about Theresa May's dancing, isn't there?

I mean, if I say that I work with, or for, Theresa May,

people pretty quickly get to the dancing.

So, I think it's, erm...

People identify her with it now in the way

that they used to identify her leopard skin, pointy shoes.

'Nobody knew I was going to do that,

'and I didn't know I was going to do that

'until standing behind the scenes.

And the music was ABBA music, and I thought,

"Right, I'm just going to, you know."

Last year...

everything went wrong.

I wanted to, you know, just show a bit of... bit more fun.

MAN: What do we want? ALL: Brexit!

When do we want it? Now!

By the late autumn of 2018,

the Prime Minister can no longer hold her party together.

Watch it!

This is BINO or BRINO or Brexit in name only.

The Cabinet's out here trying to make the case

for why we need to get behind Theresa May

because we all believe that.

The active campaigning

the anti Prime Minister group.

That was Boris and Jacob Rees-Mogg

and, erm, Suella Braverman.

Just the kind of the hard right of the party

who decided that their future lay in opposing any sort of compromise.

when the final terms of the Withdrawal Agreement

were published.

And there were a number of resignations at that time,

and that's when it really started to collapse.

And from that point onwards, it was downhill, really,

for Theresa May.

And so it was to prove.

Although the Prime Minister survives the ministerial resignations

and a vote of no confidence initiated by her own MPs,

by the start of 2019,

she can no longer delay the inevitable

as the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement is put to the vote.

The aye's to the right - 202.

The no's to the left - 432.

So the no's have it. The no's have it.

Unlock!

The extent was perhaps a little surprising.

I knew it was highly likely to go against me.

But it... You know...

Spectacular is often used in a positive sense.

In this one, it wasn't positive to have a defeat like that.

The country is in tumult.

This is not Brexit.

This is a failure of government policy.

It needs to be rejected. It's a trap.

And although the government narrows the gap

on the subsequent two parliamentary votes,

it's too big to close.

So despite winning the belated support of Boris Johnson

and David Davis, among others,

she fails to win over a hard core of opponents

on both the Remain and Brexit sides.

I voted against it once, twice, three times.

And I was very glad that, ultimately, we defeated it,

and we stopped Theresa May's Brexit from being delivered.

I'm very proud of 27 other colleagues and myself

who held out on principle,

despite excruciating pressure within Parliament to do otherwise.

INTERVIEWER: At the time,

did you consider it a personal betrayal?

I don't use terms like that.

Politics is politics. People had a different view.

They... I think there were many Brexiteers who,

not to put too fine a point on it,

didn't like a Remainer being in charge of Brexit.

Looking back,

could the Prime Minister have done more to hold the party together?

A quintessential constituency MP,

she was perhaps more at home in the Maidenhead Conservative Club

than with her parliamentary colleagues.

Lovely. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Maybe if I'd spent more time with individuals

talking them through what I was aiming to do,

then possibly, it might've gone a different way.

After a final forlorn attempt to win support for her deal

from Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party,

Theresa May feels she has no choice but to resign.

JOANNA PENN: And at that point, there were no other options left.

And I remember being in her parliamentary office

and reflecting... that to her.

I knew that we'd reached the end of the road.

Over a short period of time,

it just became clearer that I wasn't going to be able

to get the deal through, and that, therefore,

it would be right for me to step aside.

That was a very brutal day.

Westminster at its most brutal.

'Until you step down,

'you don't realise how stressful the role has been.'

So there is that that sense of a slight sense of freedom.

And hey, I was able to go and watch some cricket.

That can't be bad.

If you step back and take a historic look at it,

Boris should have done Brexit,

And then for COVID,

and all the different demands you needed to get through that,

then Theresa would've been absolutely ideal.

Well, you can't sort of fit a prime minister to a circumstance.

And you have to deal with the circumstances that you find.

I will always think that the agreement that I got,

the deal that I got was a better one.

The deal that we now have is pretty close

to what I had agreed.

But, then, as President Truman once said,

"You can achieve anything you want in this life

"as long as you don't mind who takes the credit."

Hello, Mrs May. Hello there.

This is for you.

Would you like this to somebody? To Michael and Sharon?

He's got political aspirations.

I don't know if you could say, wish him luck. Yes.

I've got a chapter on Brexit.

Do you? Yes. Yes.

Only just one? Only just one, yes.

Do you mind if take a picture with you...? Yep.

Oh, yeah. Thank you.

All prime ministers leave office feeling their work is incomplete.

And even if they write their own memoirs,

they can rarely control the verdict of posterity.

Thank you very much. Bye now. Sold out.

LAUGHTER Sold out.

It's something that all prime ministers struggle with.

When the public think about prime ministers,

they tend to remember one thing.

And for Theresa, it's gonna be, she couldn't get Brexit through.

And for David Cameron, it's gonna be losing the referendum.

For Tony Blair, it's gonna be the Iraq war.

But that's the way politics works.

What former prime ministers can still do

is hold their successors to account for their performance and conduct.

Especially ones who'd plotted to remove them.

So either my right honourable friend had not read the rules

or didn't understand what they meant,

and others around him.

Or they didn't think the rules applied to Number Ten.

Which was it?

Sadly, over the years,

there has come to be more of a sense from the public

that it is one rule for the politicians

and another rule for everybody else.

Partygate brought this into sharp focus.

AMBER RUDD: What followed was sort of mayhem.

And I think, by comparison,

people probably do respect Theresa May as prime minister more.

In March this year,

Theresa May called it a day on her career as an MP.

I launched the Global Commission

on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking,

and suddenly realised that,

that was going to take more of my time than I'd expected.

I mean, I've been an MP for 27 years.

I spent quite a while becoming an MP,

trying to get a seat and then being selected.

So, of course, it was a difficult decision.

Theresa May, the vicar's daughter.

Few doubt her decency or her commitment to public service.

But in an age where leaders are judged

just as much for their ability to communicate their feelings,

she failed to win sufficient support to achieve her Brexit goals.

INTERVIEWER: Why did you agree to do this programme?

I want people to have the opportunity

to learn a bit of what it's like.

But also perhaps to...

..try to set out that politicians genuinely do want

to improve things for people,

improve people's lives, see social justice.

Even if it means having to answer annoying questions

from annoying people like me?

There weren't too many questions about how I felt,

but there were some.

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