Theresa May packs her bags, her inheritance dominated by failure

LONDON – Theresa May, failure.

The story may not be nice with the outgoing prime minister. She had a job to do: deliver the Brexit. Yet, as the British say, she has bottled it repeatedly and dramatically. It has not been able to keep its promise to see Britain leave the European Union, on time, in the right order, with a reasonable plan for future trade.

On Wednesday afternoon, a custom-built, armored Jaguar XJ will take May to Buckingham Palace to present her resignation to the Queen.

It should be replaced by Mr. Brexit himself, his former Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, who decried his compromise plan to leave the continental bloc as a humiliation, a capitulation, "an absolute smell".

The almost universal condemnation of his post as prime minister – not only of his rivals and the opposition party, but also of the conservative press, party activists and colleagues who drove him out of power – is as public as it is withering.

"Ms. Mai has many virtues, but I'm afraid leadership is not part of it," said Andrew Mitchell, a prominent Conservative.

"She played badly" is about as generous as most of her colleagues will say. Google the words "Theresa May" and "failure", and the search engine offers more than 5 million results in 0.48 seconds.

How can Theresa not succeed? In many ways.

Second British Prime Minister, she was enthusiastic about her collaborators for the reincarnation of Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher in the 21st century.

"But it was pretty quickly revealed that Theresa May seemed a bit out of its depth," said Washington Post, the Guardian's sketch writer, at the Washington Post, who invented the descriptor "Maybot".

[Theresa May takes her awkward dance moves to Kenya]

In a parody that stuck, Crace rewrote a particularly robotic interview given by May in November 2016:

"I am, roaring, determined," said Maybot.

"Are you determined to be what …?"

"I am … Roaring, Determined, Being, Clunk, Determined to focus on Noise, things that the British public has determined …"

Her deficits became evident after she called for an early election for June 2017, in hopes of consolidating her power and strengthening her hand in the Brexit negotiations.

Although May had more than 20 points ahead of the opposition, she failed throughout the campaign. She ducked the debates, gave speeches on the mechanical foundations and, in a bluff of surprise, lost her majority in Parliament. After that, she was forced to calm the Democratic Unionists of Northern Ireland, then only one problem, who supported her government.

May is committed to "building a better Britain." . . a country that does not work for a privileged few, but for each of us. "

[Read an annotated transcript of Theresa May’s first speech]

But Brexit has consumed everything. He dominated headlines, debates, diplomacy and May's agenda.

She started the countdown – some claim, before laying the groundwork – invoking Article 50 of the EU in March 2017. Then, for two years, in secret, relying on on a restricted circle of trust badistants and officials, negotiated in May with its European counterparts.

The result was a compromise, a withdrawal agreement of 585 pages.

Conservative MPs hated him. Democratic Unionists hated him. The opposition Labor Party opposed it. The Brexiteers said that Britain remained forever chained to the United States, in slavery, in vbadalism, as Johnson said. The rest complained that it would introduce too much economic risk with too little benefit.

"She came back from the US. with an agreement, she knew full well that she could not accept the House of Commons and suggested that Parliament was responsible to her rather than the other way around, "said Mitchell, a remaining member of the Prime Minister's Office. David Cameron.

"As a result, the UK is more divided than ever before," Mitchell told The Post. "Our international reputation has fallen to its lowest level and the" burning injustices "that she has vowed to fight as the centerpiece of her prime minister's post are unfortunately all very much in place."

May saw the support of his unfaithful cabinet falling from one chair to the other. In July 2018, Johnson resigned because of Brexit. He was heading just behind Brexit Secretary David Davis. Brexit's second secretary, Dominic Raab, resigned in November, complaining to his badociates about keeping him out of the debate. In all, 43 ministers or ministers left May's government, a record.

May also set a record in trying to get her agreement on Brexit through Parliament. It lost the first vote by a historical margin of 202 against 432.

As a political theater, the drama on Brexit of May was a great success. The images of "Parliament TV" have gone beyond popular sitcoms. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Bercow, has become an "order! order! "In chaos.

[How John Bercow keeps order and throws shade]

Still, it was almost painful to watch. The flogging. Once, twice, three times, the May Brexit Plan was adopted in the House of Commons. If that were not enough, the prime minister also had to face a motion of censure presented by her Brexiteers within her party, then, a few weeks later, at the initiative of Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn.

May has held up, deserving praise for his courage and criticism for his crazy head. But she simply could not rally her troops. And she did not help her position by taking lawmakers – the very people she needed to support her – and blaming them for the wreckage.

"She could have been a decent prime minister in normal times, but she just did not have the drive to lead a divided party and a parliament suspended in this unprecedented challenge," Ben Bradley told The Post. Conservative legislator.

May tried to win the Conservatives by suggesting she resign if she canceled the agreement. But although her enemies and rivals wanted her to disappear, the tactic did not work.

She turned to Corbyn in the hope of getting Labor's support. But it was too late. They despise themselves. Their discussions resulted in nothing.

Finally, May proposed a "new Brexit agreement" – which provided for the possibility of voting for a second referendum – but he was so hated, so unlikely that she never officially introduced it.

"I've done everything to get him through," May told the Daily Mail in a goodbye interview last week. "I was ready to sit down with Jeremy Corbyn, ready to give up my post as prime minister – to give up my job!"

She said: "People have asked me: why not topple the table? But if you do this all the time, it's as if the little girl cried wolf – it would not work. "

In her last weeks, as a lame duck, May has been trying to strengthen her legislation. She especially failed that too.

"We are witnessing a great rush to achieve something, no matter what, but I do not think there will be a lot to say when it will happen." 39, write history books, "said Rosa Prince, author of" Theresa May: The Enigmatic Prime Minister. "

After the Brexit, May was tried for failing to support the survivors following a fire in the Grenfell Tower building in London, which claimed the lives of 72 people.

[London’s Grenfell Tower survivors look back on the deadliest fire in modern British history]

May was also blamed when a crackdown on illegal immigration, set up under her home secretary's mandate, made life difficult for the so-called Windrush generation – Jamaicans and other Commonwealth Caribbean islanders that the government brought to Britain to help rebuild the country after the World War. Second war

And yet, the British public supported it when she confronted Russia with a nerve agent attack in Salisbury. They liked that too, when she stood up to President Trump, who in turn insulted and sponsored her.

"She is a proud and dignified woman," said Prince. "I do not think anyone will wonder if a woman can become Prime Minister again. She made Britain proud on the world stage. Were we embarrbaded to have him as our leader? No."

In a final speech as prime minister on Wednesday, May admitted mistakes but defended her record. She stated that Parliament had rejected her agreement on three occasions, not because it was a default, but because "our policy has fallen back into its binary pre-referendum positions, a winner decides to leave or stay ". She warned that Britain was seeing public debate, "which has been considered by most as a dig at Johnson and Trump.

For most people, the month of May is moral, meticulous and discreetly religious. It is also rigid and devoid of imagination – which is not a great quality for negotiating with Europeans. She tramples and, according to Brussels diplomats, she did not sparkle at dinner before glbades of claret and pheasant.

In that sense, she was not really a politician.

"It's amazing, you could say, that she's become prime minister," said Anthony Seldon, a historian who has written books about seven British prime ministers, including a forthcoming titled "May at 10".

"She would never have resisted the American presidential campaign," he said. "She is a person from the inside, she has a busy life, she is not an extrovert or outsider. In many ways, she looked more like a public servant. "

When she showed up, asking what was the vilest thing she had done in her youth, the premier, the daughter of a vicar, replied that she had already gone through the wheat field of a farmer.

She told The Daily Mail last week, "I've never spent so much time in the House of Commons Tea Room or Strangers Bar," a watering hole at Westminster Palace.

"She did not have a lot of talent," Prince told The Post. "Who knows, perhaps Boris Johnson will perform a miracle and inspire a whole country, as he has the ability, this charisma, this dazzle. She does not do it. She did not bring people behind her. It was probably his big weakness. "

And to be quite right, the measure of May's leadership will only be known when her successor attempts to solve the Brexit.

Will the next Prime Minister convince Parliament and the country that his path is the best? Or will the Brexit drag around again and again? May she stumble because she was facing an impossible task – or because of her own weaknesses?

"Is it because it's the deepest and most controversial issue of his party in the last 100 years?" Asked Seldon. "Or was it because she lacked skills?"

Hughes reported from Washington.

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