It feels almost ridiculous to have to say it. I mean, look at the state of things. Far out.Theresa May, UK prime ministerOr at least there’s a grudging admiration for how she’s stuck at it, tackling an almost impossible situation with astonishing determination and stamina.Maybe you can admire someone while agreeing they’re not very good at something, like when a toddler makes a sterling effort to finish a bowl of cereal and only gets“Well done!” we say, reaching for the paper towels.
Even if you consider this the best result in the circumstances, that doesn’t change the political point: if you insist you’re not going to do something for a very long time then do it, why should anyone believe your claims about what you’ll do next? You may never bluff again, and even if you don’t, or weren't the first time, people will suspect you do and did. May fell into the utterly foreseeable hole she had dug for herself.
May is not the only person in this game whose idea of compromise is to insist the other person give in, but it’s a hell of a game to play for someone whose job is to have the country’s best interests at heart. A no-deal Brexit is predicted to be a Global Financial Crisis-level blow to the economy with the loss of thousands of jobs. May has given no reason to believe she doubts this, and yet she has insisted it is the only alternative she will accept to ratifying her deal.
There has been an attempt to soften the deal into a Brexit that the EU would likely accept: remaining within its customs union.May rejected all these, because of what she claims was the motivation of the majority in the 2016 Brexit vote, which she insists is a matter of fact rather than just her opinion .