In the near future, Britain will become the focus of political conflicts. Since 2016, many political analysts have warned of this. People like Boris Johnson and conservative figures demand a “hard Brexit” and a clean break from the EU, and there are those like Labor Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn who called for early elections and the withdrawal of May from power. British PM May was trying to present Plan B to the Parliament, although the plan did not seem to meet the demands of the opposition.
In other hand, Brexit continues to be an implicit term in the Britain’s political equations. Complicating the process of the British withdrawal from the European Union is a joint measure taken by the British government and European authorities. At the same time, the British government, with its widespread negative propaganda against the Brexit, is seeking to re-arrange a referendum. In other words, the European authorities are trying to direct the public opinion about the Brexit.Recently, some western news sources are speaking of an issue called “repeating the Brexit referendum”, and name it as a possible option! An option that had been previously denied by British authorities.
UK is in bad shape
However, reviewing news and analysis of the British PM's resignation from power shows that much confusion is now taking place in London. Here are some reports on Theresa May's resignation:
As The Guardian reported, It’s finally happened! Theresa May has announced her departure from 10 Downing Street. In a speech this morning following a meeting with Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, the prime minister said she would stand aside on Friday 7 June, with the process to select a new Conservative party leader starting the following week. Fighting back tears, she said:
I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honor of my life to hold. The second female prime minister but certainly not the last. I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.
The Conservative party chairman, Brandon Lewis, confirmed that nominations to replace May would close in the week beginning 10 June. Then successive rounds of voting by Tory MPs will take place to decide which candidates will be put a vote of the party’s members. That process should be completed by the end of June, leaving time for hustings with the finalists – to which non-party members will be invited. The final votes will be cast and the result announced by the time parliament rises for the summer in mid-July.
Jeremy Corbyn has issued a statement calling for a general election. “Whoever becomes the new Conservative leader must let the people decide our country’s future, through an immediate general election,” he said. The Lib Dem leader, Vince Cable, and Green party’s Westminster leader Caroline Lucas both repeated calls for a second Brexit referendum. “Conservative party interest has always trumped national interest, and yet Conservative MPs continue to demand an ever more extreme Brexit policy,” said Cable. “The best and only option remains to take Brexit back to the people. I believe the public would now choose to stop Brexit.”
Also CNBC reported that heresa May said she will resign as the British Prime Minister, effective June 7. May announced her resignation outside 10 Downing Street in London, on Friday afternoon.May set out a timetable for her departure: She will resign as Conservative Party leader on June 7 with a leadership contest in the following week."I will resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist party on Friday, 7 June so that a successor can be chosen," May said outside 10 Downing Street.
May, once a reluctant supporter of EU membership, who won the top job in the turmoil that followed the 2016 Brexit vote, steps down with her central pledges - to lead the United Kingdom out of the bloc and heal its divisions - unfulfilled.
She endured crises and humiliation in her effort to find a compromise Brexit deal that parliament could ratify and bequeaths a deeply divided country and a political elite that is deadlocked over how, when or whether to leave the EU.
May's departure will deepen the Brexit crisis as a new leader is likely to want a more decisive split, raising the chances of a confrontation with the European Union and a snap parliamentary election. The leading contenders to succeed May all want a tougher divorce deal, although the EU has said it will not renegotiate the Withdrawal Treaty it sealed in November.
The tragedy of Theresa May
Meanwhile, some journalists and analysts also focus on Teresa's political personality. For example as Rosa Prince wrote in Politico, After months if not years in which British Prime Minister Theresa May defied political gravity, clinging to office despite the seemingly insurmountable opposition of public, parliament, press and party, the end of May has at last brought about the end of May. Like a toddler refusing to leave a party, she did not go quietly. The count of three was given, more than once. There were warnings, threats, promises and enticements until finally the reluctant child was dragged bodily, screaming and with birthday cake still smeared across her face, from the soft play center that is 10 Downing Street.
The speech that ultimately precipitated her eviction, in which she overplayed her hand by detailing plans her Cabinet had not signed up to, contained perhaps the most honest statement May has ever given on her own feelings about the premiership.
Listing the exhaustive steps she took to find a way through the Brexit impasse, she said: “I offered to give up the job I love earlier than I would like...”It is said that May was eager to beat former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s tenure of two-years and 319 days in office, a feat she will reach on May 28.
Listening to her passion for being prime minister, one was left wondering how it could possibly be so. For most of her time in office — at least since her disastrous decision to break her promise not to call a general election — she has been a national figure of fun and the target of jibes. Most, such as “Maybot,” were cruel because they were so accurate.
May never recovered from the humiliation of losing her majority in June 2017, and by the time she had begun seriously to grapple with the thorn in her premiership that was Brexit, it wasn’t just the public that had fallen out of love with her. Seeing her flail these last months has been like watching a magnificent but ultimately rather pointless exotic creature, a giraffe, perhaps, brought low by a pack of baying hyenas.
Whatever your politics, by the end there was something rather sad about this proud woman forced to endure the humiliation of taunts and disloyalty from not just her political enemies but, eventually, even those she had trusted to sustain her.
How could she possibly say she loved a job that involved being stabbed in the back, defied in private and mocked in public; losing vote after vote in the House of Commons, her authority in Europe and her grip on power, as her fingertips were prized inch by painful inch from the door of Number 10?
But love it she did. Before being made home secretary by then Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010, May had long nursed a grievance at being overlooked by a series of Tory leaders for the biggest frontbench jobs. Even once she occupied one of the great offices of state, she continued to feel slighted by the Cameroons. Her exclusion from his tight inner circle was a running sore.A pragmatist in a role where ideology and flexibility are less important than a firm grip and decisive leadership, she shone at the Home Office, further fueling her self-belief.
Becoming prime minister unopposed in 2016 was delicious affirmation. It was just a shame she wasn’t very good at it. If you look at her premiership by numbers alone, the verdict is damning: May has mislaid a staggering 51 ministers since polling day less than two years ago, including 34 resignations in which some or other aspect of her Brexit policy was named as the cause.
She failed at her first attempt to push her Brexit deal through the House of Commons by 203 votes, the largest parliamentary defeat for a governing party in history. In the vote of confidence called on her leadership in December, 117 of her own MPs sided against her, a third of the total number.
It is said that May was eager to beat former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s tenure of two-years and 319 days in office, a feat she will reach on May 28. Another day, and she’ll overtake the Duke of Wellington. By the time the contest to replace her is concluded, she’ll have outlasted Neville Chamberlain.
Once she has gone, what will she have to show for her time as the 33rd (of 54) longest serving prime minister in British history, other than a masterclass in remaining in office when no one really wants you there? It is the damning truth that the answer must be: very little.
Britain is a hopelessly divided place; perhaps no politician could have made a success of Brexit. Theresa May certainly tried her very hardest. It was not enough. In coming to office, May spoke of wishing to establish a meritocracy, a country in which a person’s life chances would not be defined by their background.
There were hints at action on housing, women’s rights, the reform of social care, fairness between the generations and above all a boost for those “ordinary, working-class [families]” May memorably suggested had been overlooked by Westminster.
None of the “burning injustices” May identified in making her pitch for the premiership were doused during it; today they blaze as brightly and as shamefully as ever.It is May’s tragedy that she was both brought to office and dispatched from it as a result of Brexit, despite having shown little interest in the European Union before her coronation, and none of the nimbleness and dexterity needed to negotiate with it.Britain is a hopelessly divided place; perhaps no politician could have made a success of Brexit. Theresa May certainly tried her very hardest. It was not enough.
Gray situation in the UK
UK does not have a good political situation right now! On the one hand, nationalists insist on leaving their country from the European Union. On the other hand, it seems that some politicians in the UK are about to repeat the referendum. Theresa May's resignation strengthens political and social uncertainties in Lonon.
Supporters of the People’s Vote campaign are currently trying to convince the public for holding a new referendum on Brexit. “The People’s Vote campaign seeks to ensure that the government’s Brexit deal is put before the country in a public vote so that we can decide if a decision that will affect our lives for generations makes the country better or worse off. Good deal or bad deal, it’s definitely a big deal – and that’s why it should be put to a People’s Vote”, that’s how the campaign’s supporters define their goal!
Eventually, UK will become one of the main centers of the crisis in Europe in the coming months. Staying British in the EU or leaving the UK from the EU is both hard and costly. In this equation, it does not matter who is at Downing Street No. 10! Britain will face a crisis in the future where the leaders of both the conservative party and the Labor Party will not be able to manage and confront it.
By Saeed Sobhani
MNA/TT