The days of Theresa May end, but the fantasy of Brexit continues

It is normal that on the day of the official announcement of his resignation in May, the Conservatives suffered a new humiliation during a by-election in Peterborough, a city located north of London. His party slipped to third place, behind Labor's opposition party, which retained its seat, and the Brexit party.

But we are there. It 's very exciting, so your idea of ​​excitement is to watch countless predominantly white men' s videos telling you the great work that they would do.

Crucially, they all want you to know how they would succeed where May failed and sign a new Brexit deal with the EU.

Readers with eagle eyes will have already spotted the problem. Unless you live in the fantastic world of the Westminster bubble, the first phase of negotiations on Brexit with the EU is officially closed and will never be reopened.

May 's negotiators have spent nearly two years in discussions with EU officials and leaders of other member states to come up with what is called a withdrawal agreement, commonly referred to as the "EU". May agreement on Brexit. Both parties considered that it was a fair compromise taking into account the specific concerns of all parties involved.

But, as history tells us, the vast majority of Westminster members of Parliament hated and rejected it three times.

Why did he fail? In large part, because of something called the Irish border backstop. This instrument was included in the withdrawal agreement as an emergency measure in order to avoid the need for physical infrastructure at the border between the Republic of Ireland (a state). member of the EU) and Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom). The problem for the Brexiteers is that, for legal reasons, the support forces the UK to remain closely tied to Europe – what they see as a dirty trap in Brussels to keep the UK in the EU at all but his name.

The three candidates currently considered most likely to succeed can all believe that when they are presented to a new set of negotiators, EU officials in Brussels will see the light. They will be convinced that the only way to avoid a Brexit without agreement is to reopen the withdrawal agreement and modify – or in some cases, remove the support. Then Parliament would unite behind an agreement and everyone could relax.

The favorite, Boris Johnson, is at the most difficult end of the backstop spectrum. In an ideal world, he would like to get rid of it. And without significant changes, Johnson announces that he will be leaving the UK from the EU on Oct. 31, with or without agreement.

Michael Gove, Johnson's closest ally in the 2016 vacation campaign, is also targeting the prominent position. Like Johnson, he believes that the priority of the EU will be to obtain the approval of an agreement and avoid chaos. Unlike Johnson, he refused to sign on October 31, regardless of the status of the deal.

The same goes for Jeremy Hunt. He says he does not fear any agreement, but thinks he can bring together a team that can convince the EU that his interest is to change the security system.

Why are these candidates so convinced that they can blink the EU? Two reasons.

First, they think that the EU wants to avoid a "no deal" at all costs. And to be fair, the evidence to date confirms this logic. EU leaders have twice authorized Brexit's deadline extensions and have taken into account the chaotic politics of the UK.

Second, they think that the EU's stubbornness is due to the fact that nothing can command a majority in the House of Commons. Once again, this logic does not come from nowhere. After overturning the May agreement three times, the Commons presented alternative proposals for Brexit – all of which failed to reach the majority.

All the next leader needs to do is prove to the EU that she can get the majority for an amended deal and that all is well, the EU avoids a "no deal" and the Brexit is done and put in dust. For the moment at least.

The problem with this – and this is a major problem – is that no one in Brussels or Europe has given any indication that the withdrawal agreement can be altered. That means no settings on the backstop and no "new deal". Although the leadership candidates of this party are tempted to dismiss this as a public boast, it is nothing more than a bargaining position, but it reflects exactly what private European and British officials are saying in private. .

There are of course more leadership candidates than Johnson, Gove and Hunt. In the current state of affairs, 11 Conservatives have declared and represent positions ranging from the active search for a non-agreement to the ban of all the pro-European Conservatives of the Cabinet to the holding of a second referendum on Brexit.

Two candidates agree that the May agreement should be the starting point for any negotiations and that all the rest be reserved for future negotiations. The two men are Matt Hanbad, Secretary of Health, and Rory Stewart, Secretary of International Development.

Both have drawn praise from conservative moderates and outsiders, who are fed up with Brexit and want to avoid almost any deal within the EU.

And MPs will have their say when the 313 Conservative legislators have reduced the list of candidates to two. They are less extreme on the Brexit, but they know that if they put pro-European members forward at a distance, they would lose.

This is where we find the first three. To win this contest, you must convince moderate lawmakers while appealing to the party's eurosceptic base.

From this point of view, the plan to renegotiate the withdrawal or departure agreement without agreement is perfectly logical – which probably explains why the first three are the first three. At least, it makes sense in the bizarre vacuum of Brexit that the UK seems unable to escape.

Of course, astonished officials in Brussels are watching this. They are now resigned to the fact that after three years of finally understanding the United Kingdom's position, a new leader with impracticable ideas is about to come and make claims that make no sense.

As one European official puts it: "The British presumption that the Commission will move because a new Commission comes after the European elections is a misunderstanding about the functioning of the EU.It is a decision for the Member States, whose leaders – and positions – have not changed, and the new Commission will only intervene in November – if the UK wants to waste its time so far, it will in the right direction. "

Of course, the EU could perform the most powerful U-turn and go back. But conventional wisdom suggests that the next Prime Minister might discover that the problem is not Theresa May, but structural problems related to Brexit. And this leader should think that May is the second leader to see his career ruined by Brexit.