British Prime Minister Theresa May is a failed politician who holds on to power through defeats. Even though she survived a no-confidence vote to remain the leader within her own Conservative Party this week, it was also a sort of defeat.
Out of the 200 so-called pro May votes there are more than 150 MP’s who belong in the government, either as ministers, deputy ministers or private parliamentary secretaries.
These politicians had to vote with the government or they lose their government job and any chance of future preferment.
Moreover, her re-election as leader for the Conservative Party has not answered any of the questions which led to the vote in the first place, in particular what to do given that there is no majority in the House of Commons for the deal she has agreed with the EU.
May achieved high office (Home Secretary) thanks to David Cameron, who failed to gain a majority in Parliament at the 2010 election, in spite of the fact that Labor had been in power since 1997 and that the outgoing prime minister, Gordon Brown, was deeply unpopular. Cameron had to govern in coalition with the Liberals.
The unelected Theresa May then became Prime Minister in 2016, after Cameron resigned having been defeated, like her, in the referendum on Brexit. She and her boss had campaigned to remain in the European Union.
Her only tactic is to turn this weakness into a strength: like Madame de Pompadour, Theresa May says it is either her corporate option or total chaos. Après moi, le déluge.
So the only way for May to escape her ugly Brexit defeat now is to blame the British citizens for the homeland catastrophe looming to further disrupt the UK economy. So, a second referendum, whatever the outcome must entitle her for the political escape.
Unfortunately, the tactic of turning defeat into victory has –as was inevitable– ultimately created the conditions for defeat.
This is because the deal that she has negotiated with the EU creates precisely the conditions which guarantee that her objective of a free trade deal with the EU, cannot be achieved.
According to the terms of the agreement Britain and the EU will seek to sign a free trade deal by the end of the transition period in 2020.
If there is no free trade agreement by the end of 2020, according to the terms of the deal she negotiated in November, the whole of the United Kingdom will remain in the EU customs union.
London would have to accede to a long shopping list of individual demands from EU states, from the French on fishing, from the Spanish on Gibraltar, and so on– in order to break free from the backstop.
It is more difficult to leave the backstop than it is to leave the EU, and May’s deal is therefore the longest suicide note in history.
By running down the clock, Prime Minister May hopes that her deal will be accepted as the only way of preventing no deal or no Brexit. That is why it is essential for MP’s to adopt the opposite logic from hers and vote for no deal.
RT.com / ABC Flash-Point Brexit News 2018.
