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Theresa May’s Pyrrhic Leadership Victory

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Theresa May’s Pyrrhic Leadership Victory

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

On Wednesday, despite majority Tory support for her to remain prime minister at least for another year, 117 party members (37% of Tories) voted to oust her over her unacceptable surrender to Brussels on Brexit - what I called a no-Brexit/Brexit deal in an earlier article.

May failed to deliver what she promised. Two-and-a-half years after Brits voted to leave the EU, May betrayed them - agreeing to what amounts to largely remaining, pretending to leave only.

All along, she opposed Brexit while pretending otherwise. Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn correctly called the deal she agreed to “half-baked (following over) two years of bungled negotiations,” adding:

“It breaches the prime minister’s own red lines. It doesn’t deliver a strong economic deal that supports jobs and industry. And we know they haven’t prepared seriously for no deal.”

“Even (Tories) say the the prime minister is offering a choice between the worst of all worlds and a catastrophic series of consequences.”

Pro-Brexit MP Jacob Rees-Mogg called Wednesday’s vote “a terrible result for the prime minister,” adding:

“The parliamentary arithmetic remains unchanged. We cannot and will not support the disastrous withdrawal agreement the prime minister has negotiated.”

Wednesday’s vote precedes what’s shaping up to be an overwhelming parliamentary defeat for her scheme when the vote she shamefully delayed is held in the new year.

The only reason behind majority support for her to stay on as PM was to avoid a likely nasty leadership struggle to replace her while Brexit remains unresolved, and time is running out on precisely what Britain will end up doing. 

A March deadline approaches. A no-Brexit or hard Brexit is most likely. May’s surrender deal has virtually no chance of approval by parliament. 

Nor will Brussels agree to changes enough to matter. An unnamed European Council source said EU leaders may only agree to let Britain leave the bloc with no deal.

That alternative needs no Brussels approval. Britain and other EU members can leave the bloc if choose to do what none of them should have agreed to in the first place - especially euro countries.

They surrendered their monetary and fiscal sovereignty to Brussels, controlled by a czar-like European Central Bank. 

The Wall Street owned and controlled Fed, Bank of England and Bank of Japan operate much the same way. Powerful monied interests run things for their own self-interest.

May perhaps will end up being Labor’s best hope to regain control of parliament in 2022 or earlier if a snap election is held.

Along with being militantly Russophobic, racist, and Washington’s most reliable imperial partner against world peace, she’s inept, arrogant, contemptuous of the rights of ordinary Brits, hostile to immigrants from the wrong countries and wrong religions like Trump, as well as being hellbent on destroying the remnants of social justice in Britain.

According to a Social Metrics Commission report, 14 million Brits, including 4.5 million children, are impoverished. What it calls “persistent” poverty affects 12% of the population.

As in America and other Western societies, things are worsening, not improving. Official data and reports like SMC’s most often understate deplorable conditions.

An earlier report on poverty in America indicated that around half of US households are impoverished or bordering it, wages and (eroding) benefits failing to keep pace with rising expenses.

It’s true in Britain, France, and elsewhere in Europe. In 2017, Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn’s social justice manifesto called improving worker rights, a national education service, social security for pensioners, dignity for Brits unable to work, secure homes, help for the homeless, healthcare for all the way it used to be, safer communities, real democracy, equity for everyone, and more.

He advocates nationalizing Britain’s energy industry, its railways and royal mail service, along with abolishing higher education tuition fees, bolstering the National Health Service, devoting greater attention to affordable housing, increasing childcare financing, reviewing the Tories’ cheap credit policy, and scrapping the unpopular bedroom tax.

He supports a sweeping transformation of how Britain is governed, ill-serving ordinary people, benefitting privileged ones alone, stressing “peace, universal rights and international law” – unacceptable notions for hard-right politicians in Britain, America and elsewhere.

May’s Wednesday leadership victory was underwhelming. It lets her remain PM for at least another year, weakened and damaged.

Britain’s next election is scheduled for May 5, 2022, a long way off unless a snap one is called – requiring a two-thirds majority of House of Commons members, a vote of no confidence in May’s government, or other exceptional circumstances.

Corbyn said Wednesday’s “vote makes no difference to the lives of” ordinary Brits. He urged May to “bring her dismal deal back to the House of Commons next week so parliament can take back control.”

Pro-Brexit Tories urged the same thing, a statement calling on May to bring her draft Brexit deal “back to parliament without delay.”

She can’t hold off forever. Promising to step down before 2022 isn’t good enough. If Tories retain power, she’ll likely be replaced by someone as bad or worse.

It’s how things work in America, Britain, and most other Western societies.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

 

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

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