Theresa Mays victory is a vote against a no-deal Brexit
What doomed the Brexiters arguments against her leadership was the growing
realisation in recent months that they had no plan of their own
Therese Raphael
Conservative lawmakers in the UK voted on one question, but decided another. Their choice may not make the path for an orderly Brexit any easier, but it may make a disorderly Brexit a little less likely.
The ballot presented to 317 Tory members of parliament on Wednesday night was straightforward: It asked them whether they had confidence in their party leader, Prime Minister Theresa May. The result she prevailed by 200 votes to 117 shows that many clearly dont.
But if the verdict offers May little comfort personally, it shows that MPs understood the real question they were being asked was somewhat different. Were they willing to gamble on Britain exiting the European Union without a deal?
It is hard to see their answer as anything other than a vote of no confidence in the hardline Brexiters who have been pushing for months to replace May with a leader who would champion a no-deal Brexit. The result suggests the Tories want to hold the center ground, which is where May has belatedly sought to lead them.
Unfortunately, she has squandered much good faith along the way and now leads with diminished authority. There have been missteps, reversals and a disastrous election that complicated things for her party enormously by forcing it to rely on the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party for its majority. But it speaks volumes that those failures werent enough to persuade the majority of her MPs to throw in their lot with the hardline Brexiters who had been threatening a no-confidence vote for months until they finally got the 48 letters necessary to trigger it this week. The only reason to cling to May now is that the alternative leadership is clearly a bigger risk. Her position as leader cannot now be challenged again from within her own party for 12 months.
What doomed the Brexiters arguments against her leadership was the growing realization in recent months that they had no plan of their own. Their vague strategy to withhold some of the divorce payment, deny the problem of the Irish border, seek to reopen negotiations and hope that German carmakers make a fuss wasnt just unconvincing; it was so ridiculous as to make transparent their real aim of leaving without a deal.
No deal is what happens when every other option has failed it isnt an outcome anyone runs toward with glee. Most Conservative MPs seemed to realize that on Wednesday. But fighting on all fronts has cost May more of her already much-diminished authority. She has now said she will not stay on to fight the next election, which will come as a relief to many in her party.
That leaves the all-important question of what Wednesdays vote means for Brexit itself. And here little has changed: her party is divided and the fate of Brexit is undecided. There is still no parliamentary majority for Theresa Mays deal, which she will bring to a vote most likely in January, and no majority for holding a second referendum. That means the hardline Brexiters havent lost entirely: The default, if parliament doesnt agree another course of action, is that Britain leaves the EU, deal or no deal, at the end of March.
Bloomberg
