Edo

Theresa May announces she will resign on 7 June

Now lets hope she doesn't take a u-turn this time

Edo

I also hope that Jeremy Corbyn will follow suit shortly.

Vulcanoid

I was very confused about what had happened to Elizabeth from the subject line alone!

Danny B

I felt sorry for the old moo when she started crying at the end of her announcement.

dave_j

Interestingly although the UK and the Netherlands both held EU elections on Thursday, only the dutch published exit polls, the UK not doing so while other nations were still to vote.
It'll be interesting to see whether the UK results, expected late in the weekend, will influence the direction that the new PM takes or.. whether it'll influence who the conservatives choose as their new leader.
Her failing was to buckle to EU pressure and oversee a disastrous negotiation and then fail to realise just how bad the final agreement was... and this has lost the UK valuable time that should have been spent preparing for the inevitable no deal.
Her argument that the backstop would never be needed because a reasonable EU would never seek to ensure that the ensuing trade agreement wouldn't punish the UK was quite obviously flawed and everyone knew it, and understood that this would mean that the UK would remain subject to the EU.
She has shown herself to have very flexible principles and this has ensured that when she spoke nobody listened and eventually the empress was demonstrably shown to have no clothes.

dbd33

OK, so the posters here are glad to see the back of her. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what her replacement can do better than she did?

Edo

To answer this question I'm going to borrow a comment made by UKCityGent in the Middle East section of BE which goes like this:

"Id vote for BoJo - personally need some fun in politics and if the USA can vote a buffoon why the incarnations cants we ??"

dave_j

It all depends on whether the new PM is determined to follow the outcome of the referendum.
The delayed date for leaving has been established, the EU have restated that the thrice rejected agreement is the only one on the table.
The new PM will be faced with the same choices as May, but where May saw only one exit, the mantra that "no deal is better than a bad deal" provides a second.
The new PM should prepare from the outset to establish, within the time remaining and by shaking up a reluctant civil service, as best a 'no deal' UK as is possible. This should have been done from the outset but the EU believed, rightly so, that May's government weren't serious about Brexit and the result is that we are where we are. Faced with a determination to leave on WTO terms the EU may seek to modify May's agreement. If so all the better, if not then so be it.
The new PM will do better than May because May never believed wholeheartedly in the task before her.
I'm not saying that the new PM will be better, just that he or she will start from a different understanding of what is required and this will colour their decision making.
Ahhh.. I hear you say, but what about the backstop? Well what about it? The question to be answered is one that satisfies the referendum, not one that satisfies the EU and Eire who have demonstrated a reluctance to consider any alternative mechanism other than that encompassed within the failed agreement.
Ahhh.. I hear you say, but what about the Good Friday Agreement? Well what about it? If those politicians within NI can't put aside their differences to get Stormont working in normal peaceful times then they don't deserve to be the tail that wags the UK dog.

Vulcanoid

If they're insistent that the invalid, advisory referendum MUST be implemented, they can follow the promises made by the quitlings at the time that "nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market". Leaving the political project and moving to the EEA would still mean losing many political rights like voting for MEPs, but would retain things like freedom of movement, and stop the quitlings from being even bigger liars than they want to make themselves. That would deliver their key promise, in the manner they said they would, at the lowest cost.

Alternatively, could just admit that advisory votes where the barely-winning side cheated, lied and stole doesn't actually have to be implemented at all.

dbd33

Not to be on the fence, I think voting for Brexit was marginally more stupid than voting for Trump and that the vote for Trump was the second most stupid vote in my lifetime.

That said, some people did vote for it and they've been egged on to believe that referendums are part of the democratic process in the UK and the their voice should be heard. Intractable differences exist and I don't see how a different PM can square the circle. The options are:

- repeal article 50
- revive May's deal
- no deal on October 30th

There's no time for any other option and the it's only the latter two that will necessarily be acceptable to the EU. As noted in post 9, the third suggests accepting a return to domestic terrorism.

Things are not better because May has gone.

tooboocoo

So the clear result (yes, it was close but not THAT close) of the biggest democratic vote in UK history should be nullified because a handful of aging, murderous Irish nationalists might decide to revert to terrorism? How very principled of you.

Things are greatly improved now that the weak, deceitful, narcissistic May is gone.

scrubbedexpat142

So let's just remind ourselves of what that other weak, deceitful, narcissistic person said, almost exactly 3 years ago -

Cuts both ways.

dave_j

Like it or not, the referendum result has been cemented into the psyche of the UK population.
In the years since it's become accepted that the UK will leave the EU, the argument is how this will take place.
The issue is no longer whether this brexit will be worse than that brexit but whether a UK losing faith with its parliamentary system, and by implication those parts of government that keep the veneer of civilisation in place, will be worse than any brexit imaginable.

scrubbedexpat142

Accepted, really? Is that why over 6 million recently signed a petition to revoke Art. 50 & remain in the year?

tooboocoo

What's actually your point here?