As the dust begins to settle after the drama of a result no one really thought would happen though many hoped, we start to wonder what else will happen.
Initially it looked like the best possible result. The trouble is May has decided true to form to be a pain in the backside and not know when to quit. Her trade mark management style to crash forward in a straight through obstacles, taking everything that gets in her way in the process, rather than taking the more sensible and less hazardous route. She has had a nasty habit of come hurdling to an abrupt and painful messy end as she hits an inpenatrable brick wall of law or circumstance.
The idea that she can be moderated in any way is ridiculous, especially if Nick and Fiona survive.
We now have a situation with a minority government and a prime minister with a manifesto full of controversial proposals that will largely be consigned to the bin out of fear of defeat. Her ambitions over human rights are not in the manifesto so an embolden House of Lords will just throw it out without fear – because constitutionally the Salisbury convention only applies to majority governments. She has become a lame duck.
The trouble is that this is a parliament that needs to pass measures because of Brexit. May’s ability to deal with the Great Repeal Act in particular is going to be next to impossible. Certainly with the time already wasted.
May’s insistence that nothing has changed and its business as usual merely adds insult to injury and makes the whole situation worse. It sets her up to fail at some point, but that could well be after she has single handedly lead the country to economic and social disaster. Her lack of understanding of this just shows her up as the poor one trick politician without real leadership skills and vision. It marks her arrogance and lack of respect for those who are her bosses.
She could have acknowledged that the election result was a wholesale rejection of her vision for Brexit and reached out to other parties for a consensus over Brexit she decided to go rushing in bed with the hardline right DUP.
We now have a situation where her loose agreement with the DUP to prop up her government could be in breach of the Good Friday Agreement, further risking instability in that part of the union. It is not only fool hardy, its reckless. Not only that, without a formal agreement in the form of a coalition, such support means the she can not rely on the back up of the Salisbury Convention.
This is also done without irony after vilifying Corbyn for his association with terrorists. It shows a total disregard for the colleagues who the DUP regard as an ‘abomination’ for being gay, especially Ruth Davidson who basically saved her political neck. She really is a political prisoner to their whims and demands. This arrangement with the one that John Major avoided even when he struggled with a minority government because of the problems it would cause. Of course, if you were cynical you might well argue that May wants to break the GFA.
The rest of the party will cowardly let her lurch from crisis to crisis because the like the spine to rid themselves of the problem. Political crisis which involve NI are particularly difficult and particularly risky. May risks constitutional crisis there, with the House of Lords, over our WTO status, with Human Rights of EU and British nationals, a possible no confidence vote and with EU negotiations. That’s just the big ones we can forsee now. Yet she sees herself as the champion of stability in this midst of it all with a staggering lack of self-awareness or brazen disregard. Its like how the GOP tolerate Trump for their Christian agenda, the Hard Brexiteers will tolerate May to get Brexit through in any way they can; though this now opens it up to being even more chaotic unless the liberals stand up to the ever increasing suicide of it. The reality is that the chances of her being able to persuade both the liberal and right wings to agree to the same plan is slim.
The chances of the house of cards simply collapsing and us left with another election are huge.
There is hope. More than a landslide would have brought, but this path is fraught with pitfalls, it is difficult to see May doing anything but charging headlong over a cliff and missing the best way out of this mess. David Davis has admitted that there is now no longer a mandate for hard Brexit and we will need to stay in the Single Market and Customs Union and Greg Clark is summoning business to support the course. There are calls from Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen and Yvette Cooper for a cross party approach to key issues. This of course is the last thing that the Wing Nuts – and May - will allow willingly.