May clings to power despite Brexit defeats

Lurching endlessly from one political disaster to another, Britain’s Theresa May is unmoved as her authority erodes day after day.

Theresa May outside Downing Street ahead of her disastrous Brexit defeat in the House of Commons yesterday. Picture: Getty Images

Prime Minister Theresa May has faced one political disaster after another, losing crucial votes and ministers at a rate not seen in British politics for decades.

Yet she’s still standing.

An extraordinary combination of factors means that despite ­regular drubbings in parliament, a rolling rebellion among her own cabinet and a flagship Brexit plan that was overwhelmingly rejected for a second time this week, the 62-year-old continues to hold on to power.

“Normally a leader will at some point confess the game is up,” says Mark Garnier, a Conservative Party legislator and former minister. “The party is slightly shocked.”

At the heart of this survival act: a fear among Conservative Party legislators about who would replace her.

Ousting May could result in a Conservative leader who might take Brexit in a different direction, either forcing a much deeper break from the trading bloc or keeping the country much more closely bound to the EU.

It could also trigger an election, increasing the chance of a hard-left Labour Party coming into power. So Conservative legislators, worried that Brexit might suddenly get more radical or not happen at all, are sitting on their hands.

“Nobody wants to mess with this,” says a prominent Conservative Eurosceptic. For Conservative party officials to force a change of leader in the midst of Brexit negotiations “seems crazier even than everything else”, says Tony Travers, professor at the London School of Economics.

Adding to May’s invulnerability is that there is no easy mechanism to remove her. Last year Conservative rebels triggered a no-confidence vote in May as their leader. The revolt failed and now under Conservative Party rules another no-confidence vote can’t be held until December.

May, known for her stubbornness and her strong sense of duty, meanwhile refuses to quit. After her Brexit deal was rejected on Wednesday (AEDT), her spokesman said she still had a mandate to govern.

The Labour Party, which failed in January to bring down the government in a parliamentary vote, doesn’t have the support in the House of Commons to trigger a general election.

Since becoming Prime Minister in 2016, May has struggled with a difficult task.

She must deliver a highly complex break with the EU while also trying to keep her Conservative Party from breaking apart.

Some Conservatives want a total divorce from the EU; others think Brexit is a terrible idea and should be cancelled. Compounding her problems, May doesn’t have a majority in parliament, so can’t force though the government’s agenda.

So the Prime Minister sucks up the political pain. Nearly a fifth of all British ministers who quit ­government since 1979 have done so under May’s relatively brief ­tenure.

Her Brexit plan in January suffered the biggest British parliamentary defeat by a government on record.

In just over 2½ years in office, May’s government has lost 10 major votes in the House of Commons. To put that in context, during her 11 years in office former prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s government lost just four votes, according to the Institute for Government. In fairness, unlike Thatcher, May oversees a minority government. But that was of her own making after she called an election in 2017 that went disastrously wrong and her government lost its majority.

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The deadlock has created an end-of-days feeling in parliament. “Lots of people are wandering around talking to each other about whether we should go and see her and ask her to go,” Garnier says.

Ministers openly criticise the government, knowing that May doesn’t have the political capital to fire them.

Even May’s supporters are damning in their praise. Conservative MP Steve Double, who says he backed her Brexit deal, describes it as “a polished turd”.

A guessing game over May’s ­future has dragged on for months. May’s aides talk half-jokingly about reaching the milestone of “Gordon Brown day” where, in just over two months, she will have managed to outlast Gordon Brown, a once-unpopular former Labour prime minister who was in power for less than 35 months.

Several Conservatives are waiting in the wings should May stumble. Many of them are more Eurosceptic than May and would likely push for a more hardline break with the EU. They include former foreign secretary Boris Johnson and the former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab.

But Brexit is such a difficult project that many would rather see May deal with it.

Moderate Conservatives see no point in replacing May.

“The only problem it solves is for members who quit cabinet and want to get into power,” says Gillian Keegan, Conservative MP for Chichester.

Wednesday was indicative of the daily game of attrition May is enduring. In the morning, local time, May chaired a rowdy cabinet meeting where different factions leaked grievances about the Brexit deal. Then at lunchtime she addressed parliament with a hoarse voice, leaning on the dispatch box, butting away claims things had spun out of control.

“I may not have my own voice, but I have heard the voice of the country,” May said.

“She no longer has the ability to lead,” Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn answered back. “This is a huge national crisis.”

May indicated that Conservative MPs could vote as they chose on whether the country should quit the EU on schedule on March 29 without a divorce deal, saying she would personally vote against leaving with no accord. Several legislators expressed surprise that the leader of the country wouldn’t steer such a key decision.

Later, MPs voted to block a no-deal Brexit in any circumstances.

There is a strong incentive for May to hang on.

“I don’t want our leader to be leaving at 11pm, putting their bags into the back of an Uber and slipping out,” Garnier says.

“I want a leader to leave on her own terms.”

If she delivers a Brexit ­withdrawal deal, she will be feted by some. “She will be a hero,” Keegan says.

The Wall Street Journal