Theresa May's Failure

As of yet I have had precious little to say about Brexit. The reason, quite simply, is that I have not put in the time and energy needed to figure out what is going on in Once-Great Britain.

I have made a single exception to my rule of silence: I have noted on several occasions that the person responsible for the debacle is Prime Minister Theresa May. She is in charge. She must be held accountable for an ungodly mess. We can add to the list a British conservative party that could not do any better than May. And we all understand that the Labour Party is its own special kind of calamity.

Usually a country in crisis finds a leader. In this case, Once-Great Britain has failed to do so. It's a dispiriting spectacle.

As it happens Anne Applebaum has been following the Brexit mess closely. She draws a sensible and well-informed conclusion inn the Washington Post: that Theresa May has failed miserably. I will offer Applebaum’s views with a minimum of commentary:

She [May] is not sensible, she does not know what she is doing, and, increasingly, she doesn’t seem to be entirely sane either. Outside of Westminster, the extent of May’s responsibility for this crisis might not be fully appreciated. But in truth, almost everything about Brexit — from the nature of the deal she negotiated to the divisions in her party and her country — is very much her fault. The latest development — European leaders have told her that the United Kingdom can have a Brexit extension until May 22, if May can get her withdrawal agreement passed in Parliament, but must crash out of all of its trading arrangements on April 12 if not — underlines this bitter truth. She is not to be pitied: She is the worst prime minister in living memory, presiding over a crisis of her own creation.

What errors did May make? For those who understand the process, here is one:

She did not have to trigger Article 50, the legal mechanism for leaving the European Union, before making a plan on how to do so: That decision set a two-year clock ticking and has resulted in the cliff edge the country would have reached on the 29th of this month if an extension had not been granted. She did not have to call an unnecessary parliamentary election in 2017, one which resulted in the loss of her majority and forced her to rely on a small, radical, Protestant Northern Irish political party, as well as the extreme anti-European faction within her own party, in order to stay in power.

What were  May’s other errors?

Thanks to Cameron’s simplistic, open-ended referendum question, they chose to “Leave” the European Union but did not express any view on what should happen next. When she took office, May could have observed that the vote was very close, that Britain’s commercial and political ties to Europe were strong, and that it would make sense for the United Kingdom to stay within the single market, the pan-European free-trade zone that Britain itself did so much to create — or at the very least within a customs union.

Instead, she chose to leave both of those institutions, a decision that immediately triggered the problem of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which was eliminated thanks to E.U. trade treaties but will, if customs barriers are put in place, need to be built back. Her decision also created potential problems for anyone who trades with Britain or works with Britain — and for Brits who trade and work in Europe. 

As for her ability to work with others, a quality necessary to any form of leadership, May lacks it. If one were to be churlish one would note that women are supposed to be replete with this ability to work with others, because they are chock full of empathy—witness the pathetic prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern—but apparently May has failed miserably on that account too:

She went on to alienate almost everyone else. Until this week, nearly three years after the referendum, she made no effort to reach across the aisle and include opposition parties in the planning for this momentous national change. Although the E.U. has been entirely transparent about its negotiating goals from the beginning, she kept hers secret. She tried, and failed, to prevent parliamentary scrutiny of her deal. She does not respond to pleas, advice, suggestions. 

Of course, Applebaum concludes, other politicians have also failed, but Theresa May gets the prize for incompetence:

Others have contributed to this crisis. Cameron; the Labour opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has not lifted a finger to offer a constructive solution; an incompetent series of Tory ministers. But May is in charge, and she did not get this job by accident. I once saw a photograph of her at university, wearing a neat skirt and sensible shoes while everyone else had long hair and hippie dresses. She has been doing conservative politics ever since then, and she has wanted to be prime minister ever since then; she spent her whole life, motivated by loyalty to the Tory party, training for this job. Now she has it — and she has used it to steer her country into a humiliating crisis.

The slogan of the “Leave” campaign, back in 2016, was “Take Back Control.” But Europe has now taken back control of May’s botched Brexit. And however it ends, it won’t be a success.