The challenge for May
In better times, the headlines accompanying Theresa May’s rise to the United Kingdom’s top political office might have trumpeted an important victory for women in politics. After all, May will become only the second woman to hold the prime ministership since the position came into being in 1721. But she and her country won’t have time to dwell on that historic accomplishment. When May takes the job on Wednesday, she will do so amid national crises that would likely have made her many predecessors balk.
Since the June 23 Brexit referendum, the ship of state has been badly listing, as evidenced by volatile markets, political instability, regional tensions and, of course, the fleeing rats. Seeing the first glimmers of the damage they wrought, those most responsible for the U.K.’s profoundly troubling decision to leave the European Union abandoned the grisly scene rather than help with the long, complex task of picking up the pieces.
Gone are Prime Minister David Cameron, accidental engineer of the Brexit folly, and the Tories’ Three Brexiteers, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom, whose in-fighting and backstabbing, gaffes and prevarications knocked them out of the race to succeed Cameron, one by one.
Instead it is left to May, the longtime home secretary, to pull her country back from the brink and chart a post-Brexit future for her people. The task could hardly be more daunting.
May must now negotiate a deal she campaigned against with an EU that has little will to make concessions. In the process, she must manage a divided country and the expectations of the 17 million voters who cast a ballot for Brexit, having been fed illusions about what doing so would mean.
The U.K. will not, despite the Leave campaign’s claims, be granted all the benefits of EU membership without any of the obligations. Brussels simply won’t allow it to block the free movement of people from EU countries, for instance, while maintaining its access to Europe’s “single market.” Communicating the real trade-offs involved in Brexit and gauging where voters fall on these issues will be one of May’s key tasks in the months ahead.
She must do all this, meanwhile, with sensitivity to the interests of Scotland and Northern Ireland, both of which voted to Remain and are now seeing growing separatist movements. Though she lacks the legitimacy conferred by a general election or even a rigorous leadership contest, the future of the union is in May’s hands.
May’s already formidable task will have to wrestle with her political history. In her first major speech on Monday, she said many of the right things, but often in contradiction of her record. She promised that “Brexit means Brexit, and we’re going to make a success of it.” But many doubt the sincerity of the erstwhile Remain campaigner. She recognized the Leave side’s anger at inequality, but her voting record on this issue is largely regressive.
Still, she has promised to bring Britons together, steady the state and negotiate the best possible deal for the U.K. At the very least, she has identified the standard by which she will be judged.