Theresa May Still Stands (Against The Odds)

Brexit bizarre melodrama comes up with new plots every week. I will call it a comedy if not for its tragic side. Main characters leave abruptly—at least for this season—like Johnson or Davis, while others like Trump arrive in scene, turning things upside down. There is one character, however, we do not know much about apart from the fact that she is always there, standing on her own. She is shy. She is a bit awkward, but she is determined. She presents her ideas in the form of speeches. She is having a really hard time both from her allies and from her enemies. (Aren’t these the same people indeed?) Her name is Theresa May, and Sam Knight, UK correspondent for the New Yorker, has nailed her profile. Knight knows that to grasp Brexit and thus the future of United Kingdom involves studying the mind of the erratic Prime Minister.

“May rejects the inevitable comparisons to Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, because Thatcher had an agenda that was overtly ideological. May, unlike Thatcher, would not enjoy being photographed driving a tank. Her definition of politics is “doing something, not being someone.”

The New Yorker has done an old-school investigative piece that is simply fascinating. It is not only about Downing Street or about Chequers Plan. It goes also to Dover, the busiest port of UK, not yet prepared for the Brexit transition. It takes on every angle of the matter. In brief, it does not only help Americans to understand Brexit but also British citizens and even foreign correspondents who sometimes struggle to read May and her cabinet. With no intention of doing any spoiler, Knight might have figured out the grand finale of the drama.

May will probably be destroyed by the experience. No one expects her political career to extend past an eventual agreement with the European Union, if it gets that far. “The Conservative Party is a violent place,” one of her former advisers said.