[ad_1]
ITears almost always end in tears, whether they are paid publicly or just inside, but few of the prime ministers ended up with such misery as the one that occurred during Theresa May. She is not yet completely out of the door and other conservatives have already described her as the worst Prime Minister in a hundred years. It's a fierce verdict when the competition for this heroic accolade includes Neville Chamberlain, Ramsay MacDonald, Anthony Eden and David Cameron.
I think we can safely say that we will not remember her as one of the strongest and most stable occupants of number 10. As comical as it may seem today. She seized the keys in the summer of 2016 because her colleagues thought her "a safe pair of hands" She praised conservative MPs – and was very popular with a lot of voters – because she seemed to promise a leadership of good sense and calm after the anarchic orgy of stabbing by the cliques cameroon, johnienne and goveite. In this largely forgotten period when she seemed to be the monarch of all her polls and whose cabinet was terrified, she was compared to Boudicca and Elizabeth I. For some of us, Thérèse's first worship was ridiculous even at the time. . It is now so laughable that thinking about it for too long may cause permanent damage to the abdomen.
Now his office is planning his fall. His bads tell him to go – and to his face. She lost the trust of her European peer group. His government was found guilty of contempt of Parliament. She set a new historical record for a parliamentary defeat. The country, which some parties have sympathized for the difficulties of his position, says he's tired of it.
Its mission, which was well defined by itself, was to "succeed" Brexit by taking into account the outcome of the referendum while mitigating the damage done to the economy and not dividing its party. It failed in each of these goals. The original withdrawal date has been cleared. Business leaders snatch what's left of their hair on the Brexit burn. The conservative party is so divided that it could move towards a final split. Even promising to sacrifice oneself was not enough to get his withdrawal agreement through parliament for the third time. The "safe pair of hands" flew Britain in extremely dark waters.
I think we can identify his three most important strategic mistakes. The first was acting from the outset as if the only people who mattered were the 52% of voters who supported Brexit while treating the 48% as irrelevance that should be ignored or insulted. Where she could have attempted to link a fractured nation and forge an alliance of Brexiters and pragmatic remnants, her language and approaches have further polarized the country and radicalized the views of both sides. This was compounded by the fact that she focused her efforts on trying to please the unsatisfiable subgroup of Brexiters who wanted the most impossibilistic versions of the company. One of the most delicious shows of recent days has been watching Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and others in their ultra-crack band and tipping behind a withdrawal agreement they had previously qualified as "vbadalage". They flip-flopped because they finally realized that their game was good and that they did not have the number wanted to impose a dead end result in Britain. They never had support for that. Ms. May could have solved this problem much earlier and shaped her strategy accordingly.
The second major mistake was triggering summary legislative elections in the spring of 2017, squandering the majority with an atrocious campaign, and then reacting as if, to quote one of his most notorious sentences, nothing is happening. had changed. A more daring and agile leader would have contacted members of the opposition to see if a consensus could be formed. I concede that it would not have been easy when the Labor Party is led by Jeremy Corbyn, as tribal as Ms. May in her own way. She could have made an effort to build bridges with the many reasonable people on the opposition benches, but she did not even try. Instead, she made the fatal choice to turn herself into a hostage of Democratic Unionists and Brextremists on the Conservative benches.
His third big mistake was the conduct of the finals. Once it became very clear that her withdrawal agreement was neither popular in parliament nor attractive to the country, she persisted in her attempts to try to club him. When it became obvious that it was just not going to work, she could have switched to another strategy. She could have looked at other versions of Brexit. It might have allowed members to explore other avenues, as they do very late. It might have subscribed to the offer of opposition benches to allow it to pbad its market through the Commons subject to submit it later to the people to have the last word in a confirmation referendum. Fixity of purpose may be a virtue in a leader, but the most durable succeed because they also understand when it is necessary to bend.
The rigidity of his personality was a key element of his failures. She is not the first prime minister to have a hard time trusting anyone, but she is such a secretive operator, even the closest to her struggle to understand her intentions and motives. She is not the first Prime Minister to be clumsy, timid and introverted, but these are very serious disadvantages in this era of politics that requires a high level of communication from leaders.
Nobody accuses him of being lazy or trivial. After Prime Minister Cameron's crisis, the Conservative party thought it would be better with a serious swot. One of her rare friends once said that Mrs. May had approached Brexit as if the country had imposed a diabolically difficult duty on her. The disadvantage of this obstinacy has been rigidity. When Ken Clarke described her as "a tough and bloody woman," she embraced the label as a compliment. Nick Clegg then called her a "one-eyed politician," which meant she did not have the imagination to come up with creative solutions to the problems.
She also has a tendency of revenge. Many colleagues were demolished by his collaborators, directly disdained and scorned by the Prime Minister, dismissed or threatened with the boot. They know that this vicar's daughter does not follow the biblical injunction to turn the other cheek. A powerful leader can afford to be punitive to those who pbad through them. But when authority disappears, your victims come back to bite you. His lack of friends does not only come from his lack of gregariousness, it is also because his conduct towards his colleagues has created many enemies within the Tory factions.
It is premature to award him the title of worst prime minister for 100 years. The way in which history will see it will depend on what will happen next and who will follow it. It is not at all obvious that any other prime minister would be better than Theresa May – some candidates could be much worse. Perspective will probably soften the judgments of his tortured prime minister. Recall that Ms. May is not the first Conservative Prime Minister to be cremated in the crucible of the European question. Three decades ago, it triggered the fall of Margaret Thatcher. The party's lengthy, bitter war put John Major's time at No. 10 in trouble. David Cameron self-immolated by recklessly promising the referendum he later lost. They were very different personalities from each other and for Ms. May. It lacked the breadth and depth of political skills needed to cope with the vast complexity of the Brexit challenge, but it can be argued that such a person does not exist. Even a leader able to inspire Churchill, Lincoln's talent to strengthen the team spirit and the ability to heal Mandela would have fought.
The Conservative Party is now preparing to find a new leader for its cannibal tribe. It will be convenient for a lot of people, especially those who are thinking about arguing over the rusty crown, to blame everything on 33 months of incessant chaos and still unresolved on the woman who will be leaving the number 10. Practice, but not everything precisely. The problem with the Conservative Party is not Ms. May. The problem with the Conservative Party is the Conservative Party. The problem with Brexit is not Ms. May. The problem with Brexit is Brexit.
• Andrew Rawnsley is the chief political commentator of the observer
Source link
