The British prime minister still needs to figure out this Brexit mess.
British Prime Minister May has survived a no-confidence vote from her Conservative Party, defeating a serious challenge to her leadership as she tries to steer the United Kingdom through Brexit chaos.
May won the vote 200 to 117, which spares the Tories from a bitter leadership contest that could have derailed focus from Brexit for weeks. May can’t face another Conservative no-confidence vote for a year, and she will keep her job for now.
But the margin was close enough to leave May weakened and vulnerable, and it was a sign that it’s not just hardline Brexiteers in her party who are losing faith in her.
May acknowledged this in a brief address after the Wednesday vote. “Whilst I’m grateful for that support, a significant number of colleagues did cast a vote against me and I have listened to what they said,” she said, adding that her main focus will continue to be ushering the UK through Brexit.
And this no-confidence vote is really a sideshow to the main event: the debate over May’s Brexit deal. May postponed a vote on her proposal — which outlines the terms of the EU’s divorce from the United Kingdom — this week, after she faced the prospect of a humiliating defeat.
Everyone hates the Brexit deal on offer, though the parliamentary factions have different reasons: Hardline Brexiteers believe it will yoke the UK to the EU indefinitely, pro-Remain MPs are still holding out hope that Brexit will never happen, and everyone else is agitating for a better deal, though the EU has insisted that won’t happen.
May’s delay on the Brexit deal vote created an opening for a Conservative rebellion that had been brewing for some weeks, instigated by hardline Brexiteers who loathe May’s deal and are agitating for a more decisive split from the EU.
Their gambit failed, though it’s clear the dissatisfaction with May extends far beyond the pro-Brexit wing of her party.
But even though Conservatives are frustrated with May’s Brexit strategy, May’s win on Wednesday shows that the Tories also don’t really have a better option. The Conservatives are far too divided and Brexit is too messy a task.
Anand Menon, the director of an independent Brexit research institute called UK in a Changing Europe and a professor at King’s College in London, said one of the reasons May is still in her position is that “a lot of people, including several of the leadership candidates, are thinking, ‘Well, let’s let her do Brexit. Who wants to be prime minister now?’”
The no-confidence vote reflected a grim reality: May’s deal may be unpopular, but besides a majority agreeing that a no-deal Brexit would be very bad, Parliament remains badly split on what to do next.
The prime minister will head back to Brussels this week to try to convince EU leaders to try to offer some assurances to help sway Parliament on her proposal. There’s no guarantee she’ll get them. But for now, May — and her deal — survive.
This threat of this rebellion against May had been brewing for weeks. After May presented her Brexit deal in November, a flurry of Tory MPs said they submitted letters of no confidence to the 1922 committee.
