LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – The last three years in the United Kingdom have meant less than nothing, politically. Even the country's culture has been in deadlock about Brussels as Theresa May failed to make any real progress on implementing the Brexit referendum result.
...the country has been fractured and wrought with confusion following the appointment by the Conservative Party of a prime minister who campaigned against leaving the EU.
Television shows now talk endlessly about Brexit, so do terrible left-wing "comedians". All the newspapers are Brexit-filled. So are most magazines, to the point where the spring issue of the Salisbury Review boasted on its front cover that it was "80 per cent Brexit free!"
Whereas there should have been somewhat of a line drawn under the question of Britain's future in the European Union on the morning of June 24th – "dare to dream" and all that – the country has been fractured and wrought with confusion following the appointment by the Conservative Party of a prime minister who campaigned against leaving the EU.
It was as if the Tories wanted to lose, on repeat, for the next decade.
While Britons were forced to go to the polls in the European Parliamentary elections again yesterday, results of the vote won't be out until late Sunday night/early Monday morning. Britain spends the next three days in limbo. But that's nothing compared to the last three years spent the same way.
The Brexit logjam has meant Theresa May's government has focused on little else but its willful thwarting of the greatest democratic exercise the nation has ever experienced.
At this point, the favorite appears to be Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London.
Healthcare, housing, immigration targets, infrastructure, business, foreign affairs, and every other aspect of governance have taken back seats to Brexit: a situation that cannot continue.
A new prime minister must seek to make Brexit an immediate priority, but refuse to be drawn into further relitigation over the mandate expressed by the public in 2016.
[caption id="attachment_177080" align="alignnone" width="5472"]
Boris Johnson (FCO/Flickr/CC)[/caption]
At this point, the favorite appears to be Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London.
But Johnson – when mentioned at the Brexit Party's big rally in London on Tuesday – was booed, not cheered.
Right-leaning and eurosceptic voters in the United Kingdom know him as a liberal who was a pretty poor mayor, and who has been deeply unreliable on all matters conservative.
As Fraser Nelson wrote in the Telegraph: "The truth about Boris Johnson is that he’s a pro-immigration social liberal who fits comfortably in the one-nation Tory tradition."
And Johnson was also known for having no strong feelings either way on the referendum result. He simply hitched his wagon to the best side for his own prime ministerial aspirations: Leave.
It will probably be a wasted three days for Trump; talking shop with a Prime Minister who'll be busy taping up boxes of her belongings.
But who else is there?
Dominic Raab is surrounded by similarly neoliberal advisors. Michael Gove sold out long ago. Sajid Javid, Priti Patel, Jeremy Hunt and others are basically the same people. "Market" evangelists with few socially conservative credentials who see Brexit not as an opportunity to take back control so much as to promote corporate Britain and reintroduce Thatcherism on speed.
While economic Thatcherism was certainly the best outcome for its day, the fealty to market forces and neglect over communities, the family, and Britain's crumbling infrastructure means any new government will only ever be adding to societal ills unless these things are confronted.
[caption id="attachment_177081" align="aligncenter" width="774"]
May meets Trump, 2018 (Downing St/Flickr/CC)[/caption]
The obsession with austerity over servicing the nation's needs is what has led to the Conservative Party's inevitable poor performance on Sunday night, and their inevitable decline in future general elections.
Theresa May was an horrific choice for prime minister, and will serve her final days in office when President Trump – whose approval numbers have continuously outpaced hers, Emmanuel Macron's, and Angela Merkel's – visits in early June.
It will probably be a wasted three days for him; talking shop with a Prime Minister who'll be busy taping up boxes of her belongings, ready to move out of Downing Street the day after Air Force One jets back to Washington, D.C..
But for Britain, it has been a lost three years, and to avoid further humiliation on an international level and at the ballot box, the Conservative Party must find a prime minister who has the balls to be, well, Trumpian. Right now, they've got nothing.
Raheem Kassam is the Global Editor-in-Chief of Human Events
