as Conservative party leader to a Conservative party

conference, quite a strange Conservative party conference

because everyone knows that we're

in the middle of events that are going to play out elsewhere.

It's that sense of anticipation.

Are we going for an election?

Are we going to get a Brexit deal?

Well, I want you to know conference

and I have kept my ace up my sleeve.

My mother voted Leave.

But on the other hand, this has also

been quite a unified and upbeat conference.

There was real delight as Boris Johnson walked into the hall.

They were chanting, Boris, Boris.

And they've been waiting for this moment

for quite a long time.

He's the itch the Conservative party's

been waiting to scratch.

And he related really well to the party conference.

In terms of the speech, there's not a lot of real content

there, but what I think was significant

was an attempt to paint a little bit more upbeat, a little bit

more can-do, a more optimistic picture than perhaps

the Conservatives have been messaging

for the last few weeks, where there's been a lot of anger.

There's been a lot of intemperate language.

This is not an anti-European country.

We are European.

We love Europe.

I love Europe, anyway.

I love it.

But after 45 years of really dramatic constitutional change

in our relationships, we must have a new relationship

with the EU, a positive and confident partnership.

And we can do it.

And today, in Brussels, we are tabling

what I believe are constructive and reasonable proposals, which

provide a compromise for both sides.

He tried in the speech to say, look,

there is a great place just beyond the mountains.

Once Brexit is done, we can be a more unified, more can-do, more

prosperous, more happy country.

It was also interesting that in some moments

he reached out a little bit to those

on the other side of the argument, the Remain side.

He had a passage about London, where

he talked about what a wonderful city it was.

That's not been the messaging incoming

from the Conservative party of late,

though he also counterbalanced it with talk

about how the rest of the country

had to be given the help to catch up with London

in a big pitch for the regions.

Let's get Brexit done by October the 31 because we have to get

on and deliver on the priorities of the people,

to answer the cry of those 17.4m who voted for Brexit because it

is only by delivering Brexit that we can address that

feeling in so many parts of the country that they'd been left

behind, ignored.

He talked about how there was nothing unpatriotic

about being a Remainer.

You didn't have to doubt their belief,

but we have to now get on and get Brexit done.

That was the fundamental thing.

We had to get on with it.

And let's get Brexit done for those millions

who may have voted Remain but who are

first and foremost Democrats.

The fundamental point is that today he

and his government put in what they said

is their last big offer to the European Union.

The papers have gone to Brussels.

They know that they won't get it accepted straightaway.

They're waiting for Brussels to bite and get into negotiations.

So we have this real sense that although this

was a pretty successful speech and a fairly successful

conference, that the determining factors

in the Conservative party's future are elsewhere.

The fate of this government, this prime minister,

and obviously this country is not

going to be settled here in the Conservative party conference.

It's probably not even going to be settled in Westminster.

It's being settled in Brussels.

And everybody leaving Manchester may

leave with a bit of a spring in their step.

But quite quickly, they're going to realise that the events that

the events that determine their party and the country's fate

are taking place elsewhere and that we've got to wait to see

how they play out.