UK Prime Minister Theresa May Resigns Amid Brexit Mess
Photo by Leon Neal/Getty
Imagine a country where incompetent politicians just stepped down. No extensive talks of impeachment. No excuses to try to run out the clock to get to another election. Just leave. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Now I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to imagine a country like this—as this is how our friends across the pond operate. Per NPR:
Theresa May will step down as prime minister of the United Kingdom on June 7, she said Friday at No. 10 Downing St.
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“I believe it was right to persevere, even when the odds against success seemed high,” May said Friday. “But it is now clear to me that it is in the best interest of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort. So I am today announcing that I will resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday the 7th of June so that a successor can be chosen.”
Earlier this year, May narrowly avoided losing a no-confidence vote of her leadership in parliament, so stepping down after zero progress made is really her only move. Don’t you wish we had a system like that here in the United States right now?
When we last checked in with Brexit here at Paste, Theresa May’s Brexit vote failed on Brexit Day, March 29, the day the UK was finally supposed to leave the EU. Had everything gone according to plan, the UK would already be out of the EU, but instead, May’s conservative party cannot figure out what they want to do with this referendum, and they are spiraling towards calamity. Now the next Brexit deadline isn’t until October 31st this year, and the Brexiters will hope that the new Prime Minister can help navigate them out of this gigantic hole they have trapped themselves in. They don’t expect to appoint a new PM until July, meaning that for the next month, the UK will be without a Prime Minister. Brexit is a Trumpian-style own-goal, and no matter who is the UK’s Prime Minister, it will not change the fundamental fact that that they have turned wildly complex trade matters into a simple up or down vote.
It’s really quite something, watching the UK government try to design a parachute by committee while standing next to the open airplane door, determined to jump out either way
— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) March 28, 2019
Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.