Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Thursday, November 15, 2018

No Confidence

Theresa May is not, generally speaking, a sympathetic figure.  However, she has been given an impossible task: negotiating a withdrawal from the European Union that will satisfy those who want nothing to do with the EU and those who wanted to remain part of it.  Not surprisingly, she has failed to square that circle.

May has negotiated what has been called a "Soft Brexit" that will leave Britain with one foot in and one foot out of the Union.  In particular, it will maintain the open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.  Currently, driving from Belfast to Dublin is like driving from Boston to Hartford.  A hard Brexit would make it more similar to driving from Detroit to Toronto. Few people on the island of Ireland wanted a hard border, but some did.  And some of those are part of Theresa May's coalition government.  (Her Conservative Party does not have a majority in the Commons by itself, and has to work with the Democratic Ulster Party.)

The presumption is that Hard Brexiteers will force a vote of no confidence on May's government.  This could lead to her resignation and replacement with someone else, or it could lead to new elections.  My gut says new elections could lead to a Labour government, or a Labour-lead coalition. 

Whatever happens, there is no good result for Brexit.  There is no result that will appease those who never embraced it in the first place, nor is there a result that will appease the Hard vs Soft Brexiteers.

This is an ungodly mess, and May has zero good options to clean it up.

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