No quiet Christmas for British prime minister Theresa May

Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement at 10 Downing Street. Picture: Getty

It has taken almost two years, but the meek of the Conservative party have finally roared.

By tabling 48 letters of no confidence in the prime minister Theresa May, they have risked deepening the already bitter divisions of the party, but it is also a means by which a hard Brexit, or no Brexit might eventuate.

Mrs May’s middle of ground appeasement, to have a Brexit that would somehow satisfy everyone, including the 48 per cent who voted to Remain has been a disaster. Her defiance, thick skin and insistence that the Brexit negotiations were to be secret and handled by her own closest advisers — and not the various Brexit secretarys — could ultimately be her downfall.

If she loses the vote of no confidence the risk of Britain leaving the EU without a deal magnifies.

She has warned that any new prime minister will have to go to the EU and try and re-kick negotiations from afresh, yet that is the very attractiveness of getting rid of her.

She is arguing that she should stay because basically there is no time to do anything better. Those arguments will fall on deaf ears to the fiercest of both Leave and Remain members of the party who are hoping the upheaval will help their fuel their insistence on leaving the EU without a deal on World Trade terms or conversely result in a second referendum to try and bring about a no Brexit.

If somehow Mrs May wins the confidence vote, it will give her renewed impetus to continue on her wilful path of pushing through her Brexit deal.

Ultimately the DUP, which supports her government with confidence and supply is unlikely to accept it when it comes to a vote, and the portents for a general election are then well established.

Any suggestions that this will be a quiet Christmas and January are very much mistaken.