Today we find out that Theresa May won’t put the Brexit deal on the table again until January 14th which will give you 2 weeks to critique the Dr. Who New Year’s special episode.
Having survived an intra-Party challenge and thus gaining a year’s worth of immunity in that forum May is playing the rope-a-dope deadline game so familiar to those of us here in the United States (Lame Duck? Government shutdown?).
She has been thoroughly rebuffed in her attempt to extract more concessions from the EU.
Jeremy Corbyn is, wisely I think, putting a motion of No Confidence before the full Parliament based on the delay, contending that it reduces the ability of Parliament to debate and modify the deal which is true enough but the kind of “process” argument I find lame and feckless. It might find some resonance among MPs however since they have a highly inflated estimation of their own self importance.
Votes need to happen and unfortunately for the Tories and May they look poised to lose them all and even a single loss spells doom.
There is this No Confidence Vote.
If May wins there will be a vote in Parliament on Brexit. She didn’t have the votes last week and nothing has changed. When she does there will be another No Confidence vote.
There will be a motion to call a second referendum which even hard core Brexiteers now favor. Hard to see how that doesn’t pass and, set before the people again, equally hard to see Remain not winning the rematch.
In any event May personally is cooked. She gave binding assurances to her own caucus that after Brexit she is done.
Now you might conceive a parallel between May and Pelosi who, foolishly in my estimation, term limited herself to 2 more Congresses. She didn’t need to do that to win this Leadership challenge, her opposition has no candidate (and they’re Republicans anyway).
On the other hand she’ll be 82 which is pretty old, it’s likely term limits will not survive a Democratic Caucus vote (Steny Hoyer and the Congressional Black Caucus hate them and they have their own constituency which amounts to a thumping majority among Democrats), and rules adopted by one Congress are not at all binding on the next body which will be elected in 2020.
So all bets are off. A nothingburger of nothing. Pretty, empty, mouth noises and posturing.
The situations are in no way comparable. May is a dead woman walking, Pelosi hardly dented despite the mileage. My Great Grandmother had 2 Buick Skylarks parked in her garage, a Pink one and a Blue one, both barely driven. Kind of disappointed I didn’t inherit at least one.