Stopping a No Deal After Theresa May

So, two Conservative Prime Ministers have resigned over Europe and two were effectively removed: both the female ones were removed. Thatcher had become brittle and her loss of political touch caused her to run out of steam; May ran out of steam long ago and some wondered whether there had ever been much fuel in the engine at all.

Theresa May was a party hack and it was as if the party in nurturing her upbringing had replaced her parents (one died in a car crash, the other soon after) and friends. However, we should beware of Psychology Schools of Historiography. Colleagues were defined by the party, as were policy aims and intentions. Having once called the Tories the ‘Nasty Party’, May’s hostile environment and Windrush scandal contribution made it nastier. She was a main part of Cameron and Osborne’s extended austerity, in attacking the poor, and then as Prime Minister declared a reversal of it, and it seemed she had a political philosophy that followed Joseph Chamberlain, the interventionist, ex-Liberal Unionist. It turned out that she did not have his philosophy, because she had no discernible philosophy in politics at all. What was a possible strength of flexibility turned out to be emptiness. The General Election exposed her inabilities, and if the advisors had backed off from the repetition and policy errors she’d have been worse.

Political power fell to her, and she was unsuitable for the job. Politics has to be about persuasion, but she never sought to persuade, only explain, once she had decided something after a long time. She kept playing the cards long after she was exposed as having a weak hand. All the time people were falling into poverty, whilst the Tories trotted out that unemployment was the lowest since 1974, when they were comparing underpaid and under-employed work with the kinds of jobs in 1974 on which people took out mortgages. Many on Universal Credit being forced to look for more work are not counted as unemployed.

The European Union waited and waited before there was even a negotiating position presented to them. In her silence, and in the confusion of the Lancaster House speech and then Chequers, she ended up with a distorted deal that she could not sell back at home.

So, three wasted years, but worse than this was time to create a ‘radicalised’ House of Commons in both directions. This will constrain the next person to be selected as a leader. One despairs at the quality of candidates: a buffoon like Boris Johnson, who does not do detail and offends many by his serious gaffs, and then ideologues, and backstabbers, and the downright dishonest. Changing the leader inside a political stranglehold does not refresh the body politic.

The next milepost is Sunday night and Monday morning, with the European Parliament election results, which in the UK may introduce the concept of wiping out the Conservative Party. It is already a rump of members, but soon that rump may have a very limited outreach. The party that nurtured Theresa May could well be destroyed by her. I hope so because it is all it deserves.

Farage is a demagogue, and his likely effect electorally in a General Election is to boost a flagging Labour Party and recovering Liberal Democrats. Indeed, Vince Cable leaves after the Liberal Democrats have had a long sleep, and people will vote for it if it looks like it can help destroy the Conservative Party rather than prop it up. For all his qualities, and ballast, and rationality, Vince was not a leader. His one legacy (more than May has) is a success in spreading the demand for a confirmatory referendum. But the next leader could have better outreach and drive and purpose. Change UK won’t now eat into the Liberal Democrat vote: they have been seen off by their own early incompetence, and indeed their own taint. The Liberal Democrats should welcome them into the fold.

The Scottish will not tolerate a belligerent Tory leader forcing the UK to leave without a compromise deal of closeness to the EU; the result will be a Scotland self-generated referendum for independence, and if the Scots have to do it themselves the likely effect is greater support for it. So a Tory leader this time could break up the United Kingdom.

After the dither of Theresa May, the next leader to force a result will try to use executive power to circumvent the House of Commons, as did Theresa May initially, but the House of Commons will either use legislation to assert its will or via the opposition vote no confidence in the government to stop it in its no deal tracks. Whilst it is true that there could be a crash out via executive bloody-mindedness, the House of Commons has the means to create its own legislative space and will have to do so ahead of October 31st, or use the result of a no confidence vote under the Fixed Term Parliament Act to produce a minority government to act to prevent a no deal exit. That itself may well split the Conservative Party for good.

Liberal and Thoughtful Website creator; critical examiner of social sciences and theology, religious liberal, ‘terror blogger’.