- Post the Brexit Vote and Theresa May’s new Cabinet.
Is the new British Prime Minister playing an extremely smart long game or does she actually believe this is her best possible cabinet?
The question I
kept returning to this week, like a rough tooth that a tongue just can’t stay
away from, is whether the new British Prime Minister is playing an extremely
smart long game or actually believes her new Cabinet is the best possible.
She acted swiftly to nail her colours to the mast for exiting the EU.
The Prime Minister appointed
Boris Johnson and David Davis, strong campaigners for the Against campaign to
positions where they will be to the forefront of negotiating the deal. She has
even included her rival for leadership by appointing her to the Energy and
Rural Affairs portfolio and she has appointed a new Chancellor of the
Exchequer. There is no question then of prevaricating in relation to moving
Britain on and out of the Union, that is the European Union. She has made her
commitment to the other, United Kingdom union, clear: she is Prime Minister of
that Union and has made clear her urgent concern to look after it by visiting
Scotland at the first available opportunity. She doesn’t want a Scexit from the
UK.
She has thus
acted quickly to reassure the majority of the voters who won the Referendum for
Brexit that she will honour their choice while allowing some comfort to the
others, half almost, in the population who know she wasn’t on the side of
exiting herself. She has also offered them leadership by demonstrating a
determination to honour the decision made regardless of what her own preference
would have been.
Theresa May has even managed to clearly acknowledge and state from the beginning her commitment to resolve the underlying and inevitable sense of injustice at the root of the vote.
The inequity of the ever widening gap between the top echelons of society and those most alienated by their suffering as a result of austerity politics and the expanding economics of globalisation is currently at the heart of British and international politics. As David Williams cogently put it in an article in The Sunday Business Post last weekend*10.7.2016, those in power forget at their peril that every now and then in a democracy the population are all equal, that is when they exercise the power of their vote.
A more Machiavellian perspective on the new British Prime Minister’s strategy, the one that that tongue just won’t leave alone, might suggest that the leaders of the Leave campaign have been given their just deserts by the new Prime Minister.
Johnson is not getting out of the mess he led the British into by stepping down from the leadership contest, he is going to have to face the international leaders – European and way beyond Europe – who see him as having been a main contributor to the challenges they now have to address and lead the diplomatic mission to mend and move the broken fences. A quickly masked incredulity was seen on many of the faces screened as the news broke of his appointment. While theirs was not so, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t resist an ironic smile while viewing the appointment from this perspective.
It may indeed
instead be encouraging that these Exit campaigners can be certain to work for
the outcome they supposedly desired. But the caveat must be born in mind that commentators have also suggested
it was not in fact their truly desired outcome. Instead their desire may have
been for political power. Well if that’s it, they have it – even if not quite
to the extent hoped. The curse, now it seems falsely attributed to the Chinese
who have never heard of the saying, may apply: may your dreams come true. It
will be interesting to see how they bring about what they desired and what they
learn in the process.
Nevertheless, if I
was in the Labour Party I’d be worried.
Despite having
other small things to worry about – like how the shadow cabinet and Party
membership are to agree on a leader and direction for the Party -I’d be
worrying just how soon Theresa May is going to call the General Election, that
very possibly her carefully chosen cabinet would best position the Conservative
Party to win. Presumably it won’t be called too quickly – a certain amount of
stability has to be secured first from the initial chaos of the Brexit vote –
but I’d be concerned that it might be as imminent as is decently possible.
Would Boris Johnson and David Davison be re-appointed afterwards? Considering
that future sharpens the tooth that that tongue won’t let alone.
Angel Merkyl and Theresa May are capable of procrastination when it is
politically expedient
There was an
interesting piece in The Irish Times on
Friday, 15th July, by Derek Scally reporting from Berlin in which he
pointed out that both Angel Merkyl and Theresa May are capable of
procrastination when it is politically expedient. There will be an inevitable
period of stormy weather ahead for Britain and its relationship with the EU.
I think I’d put money on the possibility that the Conservatives will form the next Government in the UK and that, whether or not the EU exit clause is invoked, eventually the relationship between Britain and the EU may not be all that different from what it is now however it comes to be described.
However, if I was
a gambler - and like it or not we’re all gambling given the world we live in
now, although maybe it was always case even if less evidently than in the past
– I think I’d put money on the possibility that the Conservatives will form the
next Government in the UK and that, whether or not the EU exit clause is
invoked, eventually the relationship between Britain and the EU may not be all
that different from what it is now however it comes to be described. But I
wouldn’t put all my money on it. I’d take a punt against as well. If,
alternatively, the UK can make Brexit work the danger to the European Union
that it would encourage others to try to do the same might be offset by their
example becoming the most effective agent in bringing about the badly needed
change of perspective within the EU. In the longer term one possibility has
still got to be that the Brexit vote could ultimately lead to a better outcome
for both.
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