The brick wet that she was not able to deliver on brexit. This is 45 minutes. P. M. May this will most likely be the last time i speak at length as Prime Minister. I would like to talk about this around the world. I have lived politics for half a century. From stopping envelopes to my local party. In my school years to serving as a local counselor, winning a seat, serving for 12 years on the opposition front bench, and for nine years in the cabinet as home secretary and Prime Minister. Everyhout that time, in job i have done, i have been inspired by the enormous potential that working in politics and taking part in public life holds. The potential to serve your country, to improve peoples lives. And in however big or small away to make the world a better place. Looking at our own country and the world at which reform a part, there is a great deal to feel optimistic about. Globally, over the last 30 years , extreme poverty and childhood mortality have been housed. People halved. People are living longer and happier lives in their grandparents could dream of. We have never cared more deeply about the ecology of our planets environment. From treating the earth as a collection of resources to be plundered, we have, within a generation, come to understand its fragile diversity and take concerted action to conserve it. The uks leading the way in that effort with our commitment to net zero initiative. Social attitudes in our country and other western countries have transformed in recent decades. There are more women in senior positions today than at any time in history. When i was born it was a crime to be a game and. Illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex or race, and casual bigotry was a social acceptable fact of daily life. All has changed for the better. There remains a long way to go to achieve what we should andtly seek in an economy world that truly works for all of its people. Where everyone has the security of a safe home and enough to eat. The opportunity to get a good up education and a good job. And the freedom to do and be everything their talents and hard work fits them for. Of young people growing up today in the u. K. And around the world have it within their grasp to achieve more in decades ahead then we today could imagine. They would have the chance to harness the great drivers of change in the world today. Artificial intelligence and the data economy. Cleaner forms of energy and efficient forms of transport. Medicalechnological and advances that will extend and improve our quality of life. Century has the potential to be a Pivotal Point in human history. When economic, social and reach agical process combined effigy with the benefits multiplied, and with everyone sharing in joining the share, it will not come about without effort. We will all have to work hard. Individually and collect the bleak to reach that better future. The full power and potential of a small, but strong and strategic state must be brought to bear in that effort. Establishing, maintaining the legal and economic structures that allow a regulated free market to flourish. Coordinating its own intervention to maximum effect. Supporting science and innovation. Supplying infrastructure. Leading and responding to social progress. Best, that has been the story of the democratic century that we celebrated last year when we mark the first votes for women and working men in 1918. ,t has been Democratic Politics and open market economy and the enduring values of free speech, the rule of law, any a system of government founded on the concept of human rights that has provided the nexus of that program in the past. Will healthy body politic be essential to consolidating and extending that progress in the future. It is on that score that today we do have grounds for serious concern. Both the mess to clean and internationally. In substance and in turn i am worried about the state of politics. Stems from a conviction that the values on which all of our successes have been found it cannot be taken for granted. As old asook to us the hills. We might think there were always be there, but establishing the superiority over alternatives was the hard work of sacrifice. To ensure that little inheritance can endure for generations to come, we have a responsibility to be active in conserving it. Not, we will all pay the price. Rich and poor, strong and weak, powerful and powerless. Politician, my decisions and actions have always been guided by that conviction. Applicantse asked of that conservative candidates election meetings, are you a conviction politician or a pragmatist . I had never accepted the distinction. Politics is the business of turning your convictions into reality to improve the lives of the people you serve. I have nevertive had any doubt about what i believe in. Security, freedom and opportunity. Patriotism,eration, conserving what is of value, but never shying away from change. Indeed, recognizing that often changes the way to conserve. Believing in business, but Holding Businesses to account if they break the rules. Backing ambition, aspiration and hard work. Protecting our union of nations and being prepared to act in its interest, even if that means steering a difficult political course. Remaining always firmly rooted in the Common Ground of politics. Where all Great Political Party should be. I did write about those convictions and pamphlets or make theoretical speeches. I thought to put them into action. Actually getting things done rather than simply getting been fed or acquire some qualities that have become unfashionable as of late. One of them is the willingness to compromise. That does not mean compromising your values. It does not mean accepting the lowest common denominator are clinging ideas out of apathy or fear. By ands being driven when necessary, standing up for your values and convictions. World. Ng so in the real in the arena of public life were others are making their own case and pursuing their own interests. Teamwork persuasion, and a willingness to make mutual concessions are needed to achieve an optimal outcome. That is politics at its best. Is the politics of winners and losers. Of absolute and perpetual strife. Today, an inability to combine principles with pragmatism and make a compromise when required seems to have driven our whole political discourse down the wrong path. It has led to what is in effect a form of absolutism. One which believes that if you simply assert your view out enough and long enough, you will get your way in the end. Without mobilizing your own faction is more important them bringing others with you. This is our public debate. Some are losing the ability to disagree without demeaning the views of others. Online Technology Allows people to express their anger and anxiety without filter or accountability. Without regards to the facts of the complexities of an issue. In an environment where the most extreme views tend to be the most noticed. Debate, and of our in some cases, even vile abuse at a criminal level is corrosive through Democratic Values which we should all be seeking to uphold. Its risk closing down the space of the reasons debate and subverting the principle of freedom of speech. Not just create an unpleasant environment. Words have consequences. And ill words that go unchallenged are the first step on a continuum towards ill deeds. Towards a much darker place where patriotism drives not only what people say but also what they do. This absolutism is not confined to british politics. Expressed in politics all across the world. We see it in the rise of Political Parties on the far left and far right in europe and beyond. And we see it in the increasingly adversarial nature of international relations. Which some views as a zerosum game, where some countries can lose. Ain if others and where power on constrained by rules is the only currency of value. This absolutism, at home and abroad, is the opposite of politics at its best. It refuses to accept the other points of views that are acceptable. It describes bad motives to those taking those different views. And if use anything less than the 100 of what you want as evidence of failure, when success means achieving the optimum outcome in any given circumstance. The sustainability of modern politics derives not from an uncompromising absolutism, but rather through the painstaking marking out of a Common Ground. That does not mean abandoning our principles, far from it. It means delivering on them with the consent of people on all sides of the debate, so they can ultimately accept the legitimacy of what is being done. Even if it may not be the outcome they would have initially referred. That is how social progress and International Agreement was forged in the years after the Second World War. Both at home with the establishment of an enduring National Health service, and internationally with the creation of an International Order based on agreed rules and institutions. Consider the consider for example the story of the nhs. The beverage report was commissioned by the coalition government. The Health Minister who published the first white paper outlining the principles of a comprehensive and Free Health Service was conservative. A labor government created the nhs, engaging in fierce policy in fierce controversy both at the doctors would work for the nhs and with the conservative opposition in the house of commons which supported the principle of an nhs disagreed with the masses. But the story does not end there. Three years after the nhs was founded, the newly elected conservative government was faced with a choice. A choice between going back to old arguments and accepting the legitimacy of what have been done and building on it. They chose to build on what is being established. Today, because people were willing to compromise, we have an nhs to be proud of, an institution that unites our country. Similarly, on the international stage, many of the agreements that underpinned the establishment in the aftermath of the Second World War were reached i pragmatism and compromise. Conference,cisco which adopted the United Nations charter, the cornerstone of international law, almost broke it shouldsystems that apply not just to council resolutions, but whether the council should discuss a matter. It was a personal mission that started in moscow from president trumans envoy to persuade the soviets to back down. And many states who were not members did not want them to cover mice at all, but they compromised and signed the charter because of the bigger prize it represented, a global system which enfranchised the people of the world with new rights. Until then, only recognizable to systems and countries like ours. It is easy now to assume that these landmark agreements, which helped create the International Order, will always hold, that they are as permanent as the hills. But turning ideals into practical agreements was hard fought, and we cannot be complacent about ensuring that they endure. Indeed, the current failure to combine principles with pragmatism and compromise inevitably risks undermining them. Periodliving through a of profound change and insecurity. The forces of globalization and the pursuit of free markets have brought unprecedented levels of wealth and opportunity for the country and for the world at large, but not everybody is reaping the benefits. The march of technology is expanding the possibilities for cemanity in ways that one could never be conceived, but it is changing the workplace and the type of jobs people will do. More and more working people are feeling anxious over whether they and their children or grandchildren will have the skills and the opportunities to get on. And although the problems were building before the financial crisis, that event brought years of hardship from which we are only now emerging. Populist movements have seized the opportunity to capitalize on that vacuum. They have embraced the politics of division, identifying the enemies to blame for our problems, and offering apparently easy answers. In doing so, they promote a polarized politics which views the world with a prism of us and them, a prism of winners and compromisesh International Institutions and finds weakness, not strength. Expressed this sentiment clearly on the eve of the g20 summit in japan when said the liberal idea has become obsolete because it has come into conflict with the interest of the overwhelming majority of the population. This is a cynical falsehood. No one comparing the quality of life or economic success of liberal democracies like the u. K. , france, and germany to that of the Russian Federation would conclude that our system is obsolete. But the fact that he feels emboldened to utter it today indicates the challenge we face as we seek to defend our values. If we are to stand up for the values that are fundamental to our way of life, we need to rebuild support for them by addressing peoples legitimate concerns through Actual Solutions that can command public consent rather than populist promises that in the end are not solutions at all. In doing so, we need to show that from the local to the global, a politics of pragmatic conviction that is unafraid of compromise and cooperation is the best way in which politics can sustainably meet the challenges we face. Take the example of how we address some of the concerns and fears over globalization. The far left, including the leadership of our once proud British Labour party, would argue that we should scrap an open market altogether and we should be in no doubt that we cannot successfully reform the market system to create an economy that works for all the people would increasingly rejected in favor of an alternative, no matter what the wider economic and social consequences. But we know it is free and competitive markets that drives innovation creativity and risktaking that have enabled so many of the great advances of our time. We know it is business, the pioneers, the industry of the future, secures the investment on which that future depends and creates jobs and livelihoods of families up and down our country. And we know Free Enterprise can also play a crucial role in some of theeet greatest social challenges of our time, from contributing to the sustainability of our planet to generating new growth and new hope in areas of our Company Country that have been left behind for too long. But you do not protect the concept of freemarket capitalism by failing to respond to the legitimate concerns of those who are not feeling its full benefits. You protect freemarket capitalism and all the benefits it can bring by reforming it so that it works for everyone. That is why i have introduced reforms to working practice and workers rights to reflect the changes in our economy. It is why i launched the taelor review into modern forms of employment, like the gig economy, and why we are delivering the biggest improvements in u. K. Workers rights for 20 years in response to it. Its why have advanced changes in corporate governance, because business must not only be about commercial success but about bringing wider benefits to the whole of our society too. It is why we put in place a modern industrial strategy, a Strategic Partnership between business and government to make a longterm decision that will ensure the success of our economy. Strategy toy, a ensure that as we develop the industries of the future of the benefits of the trade they will give rise to will reach working people not just the parts of the not just in some parts of the country, but every part of the country. These are steps rooted in my conservative political convictions that rejection to political convictions. Not a rejection to Free Enterprise, but rather they are the very way to restore the popular legitimacy of Free Enterprise and make it work for everyone. I believe taking such an approach is also how we resolve the brexit impasse. The only way to do so is to deliver on the outcome of the vote in 2016, and there is no greater regret for me than that i could not do so. But whatever path we take must be sustainable for the long term so that delivering brexit brings our country back together. That has to mean some kind of compromise. Some argue i shouldve taken the United Kingdom out of the European Union with no deal on the 29th of march. Some wanted a pure reversal of brexit. Others to find a way to stop it altogether. But most people across the country have a preference for getting it done with the deal. I believe the strength of the deal i negotiated was it delivered on the vote at the referendum to leave the European Union while responding to the concerns of those who had voted to remain. The problem was that when it came time for parliament to ratify the deal, our politics retreated back into its binary prereferendum positions, a winner takes all approach to leaving or remaining. When opinions have become polarized and driven by ideology it becomes incredibly hard for a compromise to become a rallying point. The spirit of compromise in the common interest is also crucially meeting some of the greatest global challenges of our time. From responsibly harnessing the huge potential of digital tackling Climate Change, and from preventing the further proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to upholding and strengthening International Rule in the face of hostile states. During my premiership, the uk has all the way both domestically and internationally and in seeking a new settlement which ensures the internet remains a driver of growth and opportunity, but also that Internet Companies responsible comprehensively respond comprehensively to reasonable and legitimate demands that th