Teresa May Resigns “Impervious to Reality”

 
2,644Views 0Comments Posted 24/05/2019

 

Britain’s Prime Minister, Teresa May got little sympathy from political commentators after her emotional resignation speech on Friday, May 24. Some described her as the worst PM in modern times.

She came to power after campaigning for the UK to remain in the European Union but switched sides to gain power.

Guardian columnist  Suzanne Moore reflected the opinion of many when she wrote “I admit to feeling a touch of sympathy, but the prime minister is broken because Britain is too”

Moore continued:

 She cried the wrong tears. So shredded is Theresa May’s credibility that as she started to crack, to show some actual feelings, during her resignation speech, many people immediately said they were the wrong feelings. If anything has changed during her time as prime minister it is the waning of empathy. The millisecond in which one might feel for another person, even if they are different from you, is now just political weakness. What a world. The land of tears is a secret place, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, and May’s tears may only have been for herself; simple registers of the shattering of her delusion, but there they were.

Make no mistake, she has been an absolutely dreadful prime minister, impervious to reality, deeply unsympathetic, utterly tone deaf. Missing any chance to actually compromise. Anyone who has met her will tell you that she doesn’t really do human. I remember a miserable lunch with her years back and being mystified ever since that anyone ever thought that she could negotiate any kind of deal. A walk-in freezer has more warmth. Interesting necklaces do not make a personality. More importantly, she doesn’t do dialogue, she simply repeats her lines and her mantras until people are so bored they possibly agree with her. Or she pretended they did.

When she took up the poisoned chalice of delivering Brexit, we assumed it was a duty thing, a Christian thing, a God thing, wondering how she got up every morning, walking into meeting after meeting where everyone in the room hated her and thought that she was not up to the job. This has been called that dreadful catch-all word “resilience”. Actually, it seemed to me more delusional.

May’s limited emotional range – contempt for Labour and a poor imitation of Thatcherite resoluteness – amounted really to a kind of absence. Was she ever there, this woman clearing up a mess, stooped with a burden of her own choosing? Was she fully present?

Thatcher cried, too, after being toppled, but at least she believed things. May has never seemed to have an ideology beyond cruelty to immigrants. Her Home Office was inhumane. The pain it inflicted is still being felt. This is why her speech quoting Nicholas Winton and talking about injustice rubbed salt in the wound. Her policies are enacted when gay people face deportation to countries where they face persecution when people of colour are abused every day. Grenfell and Windrush are her legacies. She should weep for that indeed.

A Decent bloke
Cameron, of course, went out with nonchalant humming and was feted in the Commons for being a decent bloke. Yet all of this fine mess goes back to his decision to hold a referendum and not understand the effects of the deliberate cruelty his chum Osborne had inflicted on the most vulnerable people in the country. This pair’s immeasurable brutality has been well rewarded. Never forget that disconnect.

May’s disconnect was between what she said she wanted to achieve and how she behaved. She did not compromise, or ever exhibit one iota of emotional intelligence. The job was beyond her.

But it is also beyond the petty narcissists who surround her. May was right to say that the Brexit vote was a vote for profound change. And it is also self-evident that such a change cannot come from the Tory party. The language of healing comes too late. This is the woman who orchestrated a “hostile environment” for immigrants but whose own party became a hostile environment for her. Now, although a dead duck prime minister, she still has to endure a state banquet with Donald Trump when he and his entire family entourage arrive in Britain next month; this invitation was yet another idiotic thing May agreed to.

 Feel no pity for Theresa May. She has been the worst prime minister in modern times

So, yes, maybe she was crying venal tears: for herself alone, for the collapse of her own fantasy. I don’t know. I understand that there is little forgiveness in public life and that to show any sympathy for this wretched woman somehow signifies a lack of commitment to radical causes.

But I did feel something when she lost it in public, because she has lost to the right, to all those who care not for vulnerability, the hard men, with their daft militaristic talk.

I care not for the self-regard of her vicious colleagues now talking of her dignity. Her collapse has been a long time coming but it is real. This is not about a woman blubbing. It’s much bigger than that. She is broken, because we are broken. Whether you feel her pain or not, the pain for all of us is about to get worse.



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