LONDON, Dec 9, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Theresa May wants to go down in history as
the prime minister who safely steered Britain out of Europe — a cause she
did not believe in when the Brexit referendum was held.
The internal struggles and contradictions of the Oxford-educated daughter
of a vicar reflect those tearing apart her island nation before its March
divorce from the EU.
The Financial Times has wondered whether the 62-year-old could be
“Britain’s Angela Merkel” — the German leader who embodies Europe — while
an op-ed in the Independent condemned her for waging an “anti-immigrant
vendetta”.
Her ability to keep intact her policies and composure through a cascade of
crises have drawn invariable comparisons to the iron will of the late
Margaret Thatcher.
It is a doggedness that permeates May’s entire demeanour — a perceived
robotic mannerism and monotone that earned her the “Maybot” moniker.
– ‘Goody two shoes’ –
May described herself in a 2012 interview as a “goody two shoes” whose
Protestant faith defined her upbringing.
She listened to cricket matches on the radio with her father and knew that
she wanted to become a politician when she was just 12.
May studied geography and met her husband Philip at Oxford before joining
England’s central bank.
The two never had children and May devoted herself to a life of public
service that saw her become Conservative Party chairwoman in 2002.
May made her first splash by telling her Tories at an annual conference to
stop being “the nasty party” if they wanted to unseat then-popular Labour
leader Tony Blair.
But her 2010-16 stint as Home Secretary saw May adopt isolationist rhetoric
that included a vow to create “a really hostile environment for illegal
migration”.
“In the UK illegally?” asked one advert the Home Office put on a couple of
vans that drove around the country in 2013.
“Go home or face arrest.”
– ‘Too small to cope’ –
Yet May’s own faith in a “great, global” Britain did not translate into a
rejection of the European Union as a whole.
She wanted to retake control of Britain’s laws and borders while keeping
London a magnet of world talent and financial wealth.
May did not campaign for the “Leave” vote ahead of the 2016 referendum and
made clear on several occasions that Britain benefited from staying in the
world’s largest single market.
“Britain is too small a country to cope outside the European Union,” she
said in an April 2016 address.
May later told a private Goldman Sachs gathering that “the economic
arguments are clear” for Britain staying in the bloc.
“There are definitely things we can do as members of the European Union
that I think keep us more safe,” she said in remarks that were later leaked
to the press.
– ‘Brexit means Brexit’ –
But Britons voted to split by a 52-48 margin and May took over from
David Cameron as prime minister after winning a 2016 leadership contest in
which she proclaimed: “Brexit means Brexit”.
It became her mantra — a gritty determination to bear down and get the job
done no matter the political cost.
That job got immeasurably harder after May made the mistake of calling a
snap June 2017 election that she hoped would lay to waste domestic opposition
to her Brexit plans.
She ended up losing her majority and entering a forced marriage of
convenience with Northern Ireland’s tiny and fervently anti-EU Democratic
Unionist Party (DUP).
The dysfunctional relationship broke down for good when the DUP came out
against the watered-down Brexit deal May hopes to push through parliament on
Tuesday.
May’s attachment to the withdrawal papers she signed with Brussels is
shared by few in London. Pundits are counting down her days in office and the
fate of Brexit itself is clear to none.
It is a political crisis of a generation — and one that finds May trying
to will her Brexit deal over the line.
“This argument has gone on long enough,” she told hooting and hollering
lawmakers during the opening Brexit debate Tuesday.
“It is corrosive to our politics and life depends on compromise.”