Cartoon by Joep Bertrams
The EU knows it, so do our own MPs – Theresa May is finished
The Guardian: The EU has no time for Theresa May, which doesn’t mean there is no flexibility in the Brexit timetable. Continental leaders have granted an article 50 extension, but not the one requested by the prime minister. She had pitched for a new departure date of 30 June. She was given 39 days fewer, until 22 May. And that date only stands if parliament ratifies the deal.
If May flunks another meaningful vote, the extension gets shorter – 12 April is the new cliff-edge that comes into view. That date marks the point at which Britain would have to start organising European parliament elections, should it want another even longer extension. A national change of heart on the whole Brexit business would still be welcome in Brussels but it is not expected, and the priority is to escort a troublesome ex-member off the premises with a minimum of disruption before those MEP ballots get under way.
Does May like this plan? It doesn’t matter. She wasn’t in the room where it happened. The summit conclusions were handed down to the petitioning nation as it paced around an antechamber. This is the power relationship between a “third country” and the EU. Britain had better get used to it.
The terms of the extension are not drafted for the prime minister’s benefit. They contain a message from the EU direct to the House of Commons. In crude terms: piss or get off the pot. If you want to leave with a deal, vote for the damned deal. If you are foolish enough to leave without a deal, do not blame us. Have a couple more weeks to think about it. But if you want something else, a referendum or a softer Brexit, work it out soon. And then send someone who isn’t Theresa May to talk to us about it.
EU leaders cannot say explicitly that they no longer want to deal with the current prime minister. Urging regime change is beyond the pale of normal diplomacy among democratic states. But there is no effort to conceal the frustration in May or the evacuation of confidence in her as a negotiating partner. The one thing everyone in Brussels, Berlin and Paris had most wanted to avoid from an article 50 extension was giving May a licence to carry on behaving as she has done for what feels like an eternity. They could no longer tolerate the hollow shell of a prime minister shuttling back and forth between Tory hardliners demanding fantasy Brexits and Brussels negotiators who trade in realities.
There is a difference between patience with the prime minister and readiness to help her country navigate through its current crisis. There are still stores of goodwill available for Britain in Brussels, but they cannot be unlocked by May >>>
Brexit, much like Trump’s presidency, was a half-baked idea where a group of people afraid of their future economic condition voted for building walls and banning cheap migrant workers, hoped to bring the factory jobs back, open coal mines and return to the good ol’ days.
Not going to happen. You might as well get on with the program.
It is very easy to make May the escapegoat but the reality is in practice she cannot do much else. The editior of the Financial Times put it best:
Why, is she so set on getting this deal through parliament? It is surely because she believes it is the only way to achieve three conflicting objectives at one and the same time: keep her party united; agree with the EU; and deliver the promised Brexit. These objectives are not unreasonable. The referendum may indeed have been a blunder. But refusal to implement its result would have significant political costs.
The shattering of the Tories might leave the field open to a Labour party now led by a man who believes that the UK was on the wrong side in the cold war.
Finally, Brexiters may dream of a “clean break” from the EU. But no deal would be the opposite of “clean”. It would be a horrible and long-lasting economic and political calamity. The prime minister’s deal with the EU also has the virtue of being a compromise, from which just about nobody in this deeply divided country gets what they want. That might be the best one can hope for in this miserable situation.
And therein lies a lesson for the cousins over the pond: to defeat the racist Conman in Chief you need effective oppostions not the bunch of loonies the Democrats are lining up against him.