by UnreliableSalopian » Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:44 pm
The point is that it's always for May been about trying to avoid splitting her party, and even by running the clock down and offering to go she has failed to get them all to back her deal. Nicola Sturgeon came up with a brilliant one liner yesterday - "Theresa May must be the only leader in living memory to have tried to fall on her own sword and has managed to miss."
She's tried and failed I reckon in part because she's failed in one of the key things I was told about Project Management: Manage the Expectations. She has spent the last two and a bit years trying to be all things to everyone, letting all sides think they'll get what they want, and has then let them down with the sort of compromise that's not soft enough for the remainers, and not hard enough for the ERG - and hasn't dared to take on the DUP as she's needed them to avoid being chucked out anyway. Had she said before triggering Article 50 "We need a national conversation on what Brexit should look like", had the Indicative Votes before even going to Brussels, she might have had a chance of a deal - even the current deal - going through; she would still have lost the ERG and others but would at least have been seen to have tried to build a consensus. Instead she's been stubborn and has played a poor hand badly, will probably be regarded as one of the weakest PMs we've had in the last 150 years, and has still failed to keep her party together.
Corbyn hasn't been much better, he's had an opportunity to look statesmanlike and say he's prepared to set aside partisanship for the common good - but instead has seemed more interested in forcing a general election than in finding a way forward in a situation that will affect this nation for decades to come. Ironically I think this has damaged his and Labour's chances as the general perception will be that they're both as bad as each other - if we had anything other than a first past the post system, I think the next GE (May?!) would see UKIP, the Lib Dems, Farage's new lot and Change UK/Independent Group winning a pile of seats. Instead we'll still see a sort of deadlock with leave and remain wings in both main parties squabbling, and the balance of power more likely held by the SNP, who will no doubt make a second independence referendum a condition of any coalition.
In terms of Brexit - prepare for no deal looks a likely option, as the EU will be looking at the latest evidence of chaos with despair, and are more likely to say "Look, let's pull the plug and be done with it" rather than offer a longer extension with no prospect of real progress. For those that think they won't - the UK represents approx. 10% of the exports of the rest of the EU, and regardless of whatever deal is done that will not suddenly drop to zero.... so what's in it for them?