Where to begin in considering the ten contenders to replace Theresa May as the Conservative Party Leader and, by extension, as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? Maybe with the drugs.
Brexit is an all-consuming maelstrom of political dysfunction, one that has compelled Britain’s eyes inward. Yet amid the chaos, Prime Minister Theresa May has been steadfast in her determination that the country’s international role should not succumb to the same myopic fate as its departure from the European Union has.
Theresa May’s decision to stand down as the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party—and, consequently, as prime minister—has sparked a leadership battle months in the making. As many as 11 Conservatives have announced their candidacy, and more can be expected to enter the race once it formally begins on June 10.
Theresa May has bowed to intense pressure from her own party and named 7 June as the day she will step aside as Conservative leader, drawing her turbulent three-year premiership to a close. Speaking in Downing Street, May said it had been “the honour of my life” to serve as Britain’s second prime minister. Her voice breaking, she said she would leave “with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude”.
From John le Carré’s novels to the insatiable popular interest in James Bond, Britain has long enjoyed, and cultivated, an image of producing superior spies. This reputation is based on more than myth. For decades during and following World War II, the painstaking real-world work of British intelligence officers was one of the United Kingdom’s primary sources of power.
Britain’s departure from the European Union and the forging of a new cross-Channel relationship was supposed to be one of the “easiest” deals “in human history.” It has, instead, turned out to be a national nightmare and an international embarrassment.
Read Here – The National Interest
Also read: The Brexit Wreckers
Many have been lamenting the dark path that Europe and the transatlantic relationship are currently on, but there hasn’t been much discussion of where that path leads. European weakness and division, a strategic “decoupling” from the United States, the fraying of the European Union, “after Europe,” “the end of Europe”—these are the grim scenarios, but there is a comforting vagueness to them.
Is populism still on the rise? That question will be looming over elections in Israel, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Spain, and the European Union over the next two months. Yet it will be misplaced, for the real contest is between nationalism and internationalism.
The likelihood of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal just got a whole lot higher—and Prime Minister Theresa May is largely to blame. On Tuesday, British lawmakers overwhelmingly voted against May’s negotiated agreement with the EU, delivering a damaging (albeit foreseeable) blow to her Brexit strategy.
Prime Minister Theresa May survived a confidence vote by the Conservative Party on Wednesday, but a mutiny by more than a third of her lawmakers indicated parliament was heading towards deadlock over Brexit.
