Every British Prime Minister wants to be remembered for something good after they leave office. Some like Clement Atlee or Winston Churchill are indeed remembered for such reasons and Atlee and Churchill are recalled as great social reformers or war leaders respectively. But more often than not, Prime Ministers are remembered for their scandals, failures and mistakes. Sir Edward Heath will be remembered for the industrial unrest that contributed to his fall. Harold Macmillan’s name will be linked with the Profumo Affair and Tony Blair’s memory will forever be associated with the Iraq War, or more to the point the machinations that led up to the decision to go to war.
If failure is more likely to be recalled by historians than success then it is likely that Theresa May will be remembered not for anything positive that she has done but for the disastrous way she has handled the Brexit situation. She managed to turn a clear cut result from the 2016 Referendum for the UK to leave the EU into a mess that is likely to have profound negative implications for the future.
She will also be remembered as the Prime Minister who suffered the biggest ever defeat in the House of Commons in modern history. Her defeat over her Brexit deal is bigger even than that of Labour PM Ramsey Macdonald in 1924 over the issue of the non prosecution of a Communist agitator. Theresa May has suffered a record loss and her conduct as Prime Minister and her failures could bring about unprecedented political problems for the UK and its people.
Theresa May is now, following her massive and historic defeat in the House of Commons, facing a vote of confidence later today and although she may survive, such survival is not assured and we may be looking at a snap general election. This I believe is not what Britain needs right now. We are supposed to be leaving the EU at the end of March and in these times of turmoil we need a stable and confident government that puts British interests first. We will not get that if there is an election and either May (or some or hastily appointed caretaker Tory leader) scrapes in with a small majority or worse we end up being led by Corbyn and his gang of socialist maniacs.
The way that Mrs May and the Remain obsessives in the House of Commons has behaved has damaged people’s confidence in the political system and that is not something good. Although Members of Parliament are representatives and not delegates and can therefore vote according to their consciences and their knowledge, the disdain shown by the Remainers in Parliament towards Brexiteers both inside and outside Parliament has been noticed. This has elicited a feeling of disgust in many of us but worse has made social and political disruption much more likely. Had the various MP’s respected the vote, despite their own personal misgivings, then such disruption would have been less likely. As it is the Remainers have managed to project an image of Parliament of a entity that does not care what we ‘little people’ think. It is likely that this bad image that has been created may have more negative influence both in politics and the wider country than the Remainers and their allies may have thought it would create.
There is still, according to Westmonster quoting a YouGov poll, 46% of Britons in favour of loosening our ties to the EU whether by ‘no deal’, Mrs May’s deal or a renegotiation. The option favoured by some of the Remainers, that of a second Referendum, is supported by only 8% of those surveyed. Britons seem to be roughly split on how to proceed but what should not be denied is that the way that the Government has handled the Referendum and Brexit issues has contributed to the political turmoil that we are currently suffering.
I’m very worried about the way that we are heading. I would prefer a clean break with the EU, the short term pain incurred by this may well be worth the long term gain achieved by leaving a bloc that is not only anti democratic but also profoundly authoritarian.
The political splits, both within and between parties and between the London based political class and the rest of the country are problems that could and should have been avoided. A clean break with the EU with some negotiated temporary compromises may have upset both Remainers and some Brexiteers but it would have been better than the situation that we have at present. I am concerned that this turmoil and the bad image that this turmoil has given of Parliament and those who represent us will do little more than encourage the worst of the worst to do their stuff. The violent thugs and extremists of both Left and Right will and currently are exploiting this political crisis for their own ends and the result of this will more than likely not be good. Extremists of all stripes do take advantage of seemingly intractable political problems but this is a battle that the extremists need to lose for all our sakes. I hope that Mrs May survives the vote of confidence and we continue to have a Tory government, not because I like her or support her policies, but because the alternative, Corbyn’s socialist lunatics and the possible strong reaction to them, could be much, much worse.
We do seem to be cursed to live in interesting political times and I hope that this country and all that is best about it can survive the current problems. I don’t recall any time in my life, not even during the most divisive periods of Thatcherism or during Callaghan’s ‘Winter of Discontent’ when the British political world looked so unstable and riven by tumult. This worries me greatly and I find myself praying not just for Brexit, but for the stability that could rescue the country from the widening maw of extremism.
