Theresa May stepping down just announced

[Mummyoflittledragon]

TM has agreed to start the process of leaving office in June. I have mixed feelings and am very worried about the future of this country. AIBU to think this is going to make the situation worse and possibly lead to no deal Brexit?

I really do hope the Brexit Party do well. Fresh air. Somebody says something they mean

All they have, fresh air. They have no manifesto, no policies, nothing. Anyone voting for them is voting for the complete unknown and is therefore a fucking idiot.

The annoying thing is Tories would do ok with a decent-ish leader as Labour appears terminally stuck with Corbyn

Boris Johnson standing for leadership isn’t a surprise. He’s been running a one-man leadership campaign 24/7 for years.

Gove is at least clever, unlike Boris who thinks he is. But he’d be awful. But better than many of the alternatives I suppose. What a bloody mess this all is.

Esther McVey is standing for Leader. I've read she's a nasty, mendacious, duplicitous climber. Like poison ivy.

She really is the living definition of a nasty Tory.

Look for a plodder who no-one really likes but no-one dislikes to see who they'll elect - Major, May that's how they both wound up in charge.

Major though is being reevaluated and seen more kindly with the passage of time. E.g he is recognised as one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement, which was IMO a huge achievement. Blair too would be recognised as another except that the idiot took us into war with Iraq.

Cameron, May - probably will join the ranks of Chamberlain and Eden - although I think both of those two had been reasonably successful politicians up to then. I don't think you can really say that Cameron or May have been successful.

What will probably hurt May most is, is if she wrecks the Tory party in the process.

I wonder if it’s a case of better the devil you know at this point. What bloated Tory windbag will we get in replacement?

whatwould
I agree. This is once again England rules supreme and it really annoys me - I’m English btw. The referendum should never have been allowed to stand with just one country voting leave and the others remain. Thanks for the invitation.

well that’s not entirely true, BollocksToBrexit. They’d be voting for the complete unknown plus Nigel Farage and a betrayal myth lifted straight from 1930s Germany. What an appealing package!

(seriously, what is possessing people to see Nigel bloody Farage as an alternative to cynical lying politicians? Have they perhaps not heard of him before or something? He’s an ex-banker career politician who is crap at his actual job, when he even turns up for it, which isn’t often.)

Esther McVey is getting married to Philip Davies, the odious woman-hating MP for Shipley.

53rdWay It makes no sense. It's like they've collectively lost the plot and cannot see the utter wankstain before them.

I did come to feel that perhaps Boris' laziness would spare us brexit because he will do so little. It'll be expensive though - Boris always very good at spending lots and lots of other people's money to remarkably little effect. He's perhaps enough of a shit to finally split the Tories though, he will piss somebody off, not sure who.

Or Jeremy Hunt? Wonder if he'll throw his hat in the ring.

(I hate the Tories, my the way, but anyone is better than Boris or Rees-Mogg.)

I wouldn't say that Theresa May is an ambitious, vacuous politico. Ambitious yes, but not vacuous. She's a very clever woman who took on a poisoned chalice without fully considering how career destroying being Prime Minister actually is. She has not been the best we have ever had, nor the worst (Pig Face I'm looking at you) but she has faced betrayal and undermining from day 1 and has carried on regardless. Whatever you think of her she's still a human being and I don't blame her for thinking "fuck it, if i stay I'll be hated and if i go I'll be hated, there's no difference so I'll go".

I am no fan of her politics and actually didn't think Gordon Brown was that bad, but give the poor cow a break!

Hunt has definitely been posturing as a candidate in the last few weeks.

I never thought I'd see the day where I was hoping for Michael Gove to be the next PM but if it keeps Boris Johnson or Jacob Rees-Mogg out of Number 10 then I fear it may be the least worst option.

What a fucking mess.

Boris said “no” to the job before May stepped forward. How can he even be a contender?

I don't go along with the 'poor Theresa and her poisoned chalice' selfless martyr narrative. She came up with the red lines and the red lines have been the things to cripple any progress.

OP, you and little dragon are most welcome

It's not about being anti-English in the least. It's the fact we don't stand a chance in terms of being represented. I mean, Scotland's entire population is MILLIONS less than that of London, never mind the rest of England. The Scots, Welsh and N. Irish are truly at the whim of English voters. When that's the case, democracy simply doesn't exist. The Tory-caused austerity (as far back as Thatcher and co) has a lot to answer for in terms of the rapidly declining quality of life of each and every person on these islands.

I can't take the phrase United Kingdom seriously anymore!

Wait! Let me work through this...

Remaining, Not leaving. That's the one where we stay in but lose the current 66% rebate; lose all of the opt outs, including keeping our own currency, so we will have to join the Euro, etc etc? Or has there been a promise that we can stay as we are - I don't think so, but....

Taking TM's deal extends the time 'They', whoever they turn out to be, have to fine tune the details and probably culminates in whatever The Backstop really is... presumably a bastardised version of Not Leaving where the UK stays in the customs union... and on we go for another 2 years!

No Deal Brexit - we just leave and say fuck it. Big businesses weep and have to 'make do' with the WTOs rules (like the rest of the world does), small businesses who don't export (that's most of us) don't notice much difference and we get to see who really was right / wrong with their crystal balls!

The Canadian option (with some bastardised Irish border thing) - would mean that all politicians stop fucking about and put the best inetrests of the electorate first, AKA 'Doing their jobs'

Or is there something I have missed?

It's too late for the status quo. So what is it we really want / can get?

Unless we get proper answers to the Remain/ Deal Brexit / No Deal Brexit I suspect some of us will choose to vote for some very odd parties, to make a point, get the result we think we understand and want!

Well I don't want boris or jrm, are there any remotely decent possibilities

@greathat

Sadly, no

Why would remaining mean we lose our current opt-outs?

Major though is being reevaluated and seen more kindly with the passage of time
Only by revisionist historians. I haven't forgiven him for his (pre PM) treatment of pensioners during the winter of 1986, even Thatcher of all people had to countermand him to get some money to the freezing old folks. He was (and remains) a really nasty piece of work hiding in kindly cricket-loving fake persona.

betty Nice to hear someone else follows Simple Politics. I don't have the foggiest otherwise .

The annoying thing is Tories would do ok with a decent-ish leader as Labour appears terminally stuck with Corbyn

Eh? The Tories are "doing OK" without a decent-ish leader - they are in power and people keep on voting for them in spite of them wrecking the country.