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Karla Adam
London correspondent covering the United Kingdom
January 20th at 3:37 pm
LONDON – In two extraordinary days in the House of Commons, last week there were 1,265 votes on the Brexit issue and the Prime Minister's effort to do so.
And nothing has changed.
There was a complete and total defeat of the Prime Minister's agreement against Brexit. Then the unsavory rescue of his government. Theresa May is still at the center of the chaos.
Scholars of British politics can not believe it. No leader has ever survived such a parliamentary badault, described by many as "the worst of history".
But May has. How?
Europe has long been a toxic issue for the Conservative Party, leading to the downfall of former prime ministers such as David Cameron, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. Brexit would always be difficult for all prime ministers, Conservatives or Labor.
Although manhandled, May did not play the cards well as she did. She is famous secret. She is not a natural builder of coalitions. She told the jockey cabinet members, "I do not market."
And she was poorly served by her communication skills. It has never been able to explain, in simple terms, the complex and necessary trade-offs badociated with Brexit, such as the redoubtable Irish backstop or the real costs of maintaining a 'friction free trade' with the UK. Europe.
But she is tenacious.
"We know what his strength is, which is indomitable," said Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King's College London. "But she has a bunker mentality, so the cabinet is left behind. Last week, she tended to govern as if she had a huge majority. But she does not do it. It failed to explain or convince, which is why Parliament did not get it, because it never bothered to say it. "
As the House of Commons debated its fate, the Daily Express tabloid called it "valiant."
"She is the badroach of the nuclear winter," wrote writer Tom Peck in The Independent.
May's struggles last week were motivated by the deep divisions of May's conservative party over relations between Britain and Europe. The Tories simply can not agree on the path they want to follow – and the whole brawl that lasted two years in May to leave the continental trading bloc did not take place with the bureaucrats in Brussels, but between the belligerent tribes of hard and moderate conservatives, between the leavers and the remnants of his own government.
And the reason why May was not immediately fired?
Nobody wants his job.
Or rather, everyone wants his job: Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Javid Sajid, Jeremy Hunt. They just do not want to do it now. They want it later. After. After the month of May, either a version of his unloved version, mid-entry, mid-exit, compromising the Brexit along the finish line, or she fails spectacularly, and the Brexit and the Britain must be saved.
Conservative lawmaker Steve Double has personified the divided spirit of conservatives. When he stood up to defend May during the censorship vote, he began by acknowledging that he was one of 118 Conservative MPs out of 317 to have voted against his agreement. But he wanted her to continue and to do better.
"The Prime Minister has many qualities," said Double, "and these qualities have become evident lately, and people all over the country admire his resilience, his courage and his determination."
Double said that he just wanted May to apply that determination to get better agreement from the Europeans.
Tom Watson, Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, told Parliament: "I am sure that all members of this House admire its resilience. Suffering humiliation she suffered on the world stage would have ended much earlier the weaker people. "
"Nobody doubts his determination, which is usually an admirable quality," said Watson. "But poorly applied, it can be toxic. And the cruelest truth is that it does not have the necessary skills, the political skills, the empathy, the capacity and, above all, the politics to run this country any longer. "
He said: "The country is really sorry for the Prime Minister. I am sorry for the Prime Minister. But she can not confuse pity with political legitimacy. "
The priest's 62-year-old daughter from England, who enjoys long hikes and stiff whiskey, would not be ashamed to be pained.
A newly-baderted parliament asked May to present her "Plan B" on Monday and to tell members how she will get Britain out of Europe. Four days of talks with opposition members and conservatives who opposed his Brexit bill do not seem to have managed to get out of the stalemate.
One of the options could be that May is looking for a bilateral treaty with Ireland that bypbades the European Union but prevents a hard border on the Irish island – which could get more money. approval for his exit plan.
But the chaos is likely to continue. The main article of the Sunday Times in London was entitled "Theresa May in the collapse of Brexit" and hinted that members of Parliament were plotting to "deflect" the agenda and force May to delay Brexit .
May served for six years as Secretary of the Interior – essentially Interior Minister, responsible for Homeland Security and Immigration – in the Cameron government, still outside in a chumy cabinet filled with many champions of debates in private schools.
"I know I'm not a luxury politician," May said in announcing his candidacy for the post of prime minister in June 2016, when Cameron resigned abruptly after losing the Brexit referendum. "I do not visit TV studios. I do not talk about people during lunch. I will not drink in the bars of Parliament. I do not often wear my heart on my sleeve. I just did the work in front of me. "
Last week was one of the most tumultuous in the history of the 184 years of the Conservative Party – and it is in May. She lost the vote on her Brexit deal by 230 votes, with over a third of the Conservatives joining the opposition to reject the withdrawal agreement she has. considered the best and the only agreement. The next day, conservative lawmakers resumed their training and unanimously supported May's government in a vote of no-confidence organized by the Leader of the opposition Labor Party.
Marcus Roberts, director of international projects at the YouGov polling agency, said that when May became prime minister following the Brexit referendum of 2016, there was "relief that there is a adult in the room, and the audience seemed to respond positively to the strength and certainty that she offers them. "
The situation started to go wrong in 2017, when May called a general election that she was not held to – and lost the majority of her government. May was a robot, disconnected, a poor militant.
Today, "voters admire her for her courage, tenacity and principled support for the deal she has negotiated." They like the way she is fighting to get it, but there is a big caveat, "said Roberts, based on his interpretation of the polls. "The voters refuse to support the transaction."
"They like it so even if they do not agree with it," Roberts said. "She still gets sympathy from voters who say she's not responsible for that."
It is important here to remember that the month of May 2016 campaigned to stay in the European Union.
"Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, they all win," said Roberts. "But she's the cleaning team, she's the one who has to fix the problem. Even though this is his contract, voters still do not consider it a waste, and that's a very interesting thing. "
Read more
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Trump said Theresa May's agreement on the Brexit was bad for the trade. He is right, so to speak.
Concerns about immigration motivated the vote on Brexit. Then the attitudes changed.
Today's coverage of Swiss Post correspondents around the world
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