Talk Elections

With a record defeat on her Brexit deal, and a no confidence vote looming, the question must now be asked, should the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May, resign, before such a no-confidence vote, that she may lose?

I believe she should, as it might be the only way to save the office of Prime Minister for the Conservatives in the short term (nothing, short of a major scandal by Corbyn or the next Labor leader, is really going to stop Labor from winning at the next election the way things are going, however).

Yes.

Former British PM David Cameron is to blame for all of this, along with May.

Agreed. I actually think Leave would never have won in 2016 had Cameron been a decent PM. I think a lot of people voted for it as a protest vote against him. And don't forget Merkel too. Without those two, Leave would never have gotten past 40%.

I definitely wouldn’t mind it.

Yes, of course she should.

I say this as someone who would have voted yes to the deal.

Past PMs were resigning over losing more trivial votes by more trivial margins, and this is definitively not a trivial matter.

Normally it'd be a fatal blow, but I guess no Tory wants to challenge May because of the mess to inherit or simply because there's no stalking horse to trigger the race ("a regicide cannot inherit the throne" mentality).

Strictly speaking they cannot challenge her, she's safe from an official vote of confidence as party leader until December 2019 and leadership challenges no longer exist - thus no need for a stalking horse -.

Since May has made it evident she'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming from the Premiership the only two alternatives (from the Tory MP's position) to get rid of her are a successful VONC in which May has the decency to resign and the Conservatives then try to form a government in 14 days before an election; or threatening May with a party split or something as dramatic to force her to go.

I miss the old times before that vote of confidence to last for months/fixed term garbage.

Don't we all!

Yes, she should resign.

Isn't this fixed term stuff because of Nick Clegg?

Partially, when it comes to Parliament itself. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act passed because of Clegg and the Lib Dems, empowering future minority governments (like May after the 2017 Election) by making it harder for them to be removed via VONC (requiring a 14 period in which the old or a new Government could regain the confidence of the House before an election is mandatory) and making it harder to trigger an election. Had it been like the old days and May lost the coming VONC she'd pretty much have to resign right away or call an election.

Alas, the biggest rule keeping her in office is the rules of the Conservative Party. If before the norm was a candidate standing against the leader, when the rules were changed under William Hague in 1998 Party Leaders had to be ousted via a Vote of No Confidence, and if the leader won he was safe for a year from another immediate VONC. So - other than the unfortunate parliamentary arithmetic and the DUP not knifing her jut yet - the Fixed-Terms Act and the Conservative Party Rules are essentially keeping her in office.

Corbyn IS a major scandal.

Regardless, she should leave if the polls indicate another candidate can do significantly better. But any leader is going to find themselves in this fix unless they commit to a revote.

This, but May, bless her heart, seems intent on being dragged out of 10 Downing Street kicking and sccreaming.

If they hated him so much he wouldn't have won 2015 would he? To be honest the 2016 budget was just very f**ing dumb. They could have postponed some small stuff for a year and they might have been fine.

Anyway, T-May should stay. She's playing the long game here. If she can get something like this deal through on pure bluff and fearmongering and the Tories win the general election after this (remember, Corbyn also isn't popular) she'll be the best British PM since Thatcher in my eyes. Do we think another overgrown Eton manchild would do better than this? Do we think anyone would do better than this? This is an impossible mess and May is making the best of it. Leaving the scene and triggering a new leadership election or general election during this mess also wouldn't be very patriotic tbh.

In itself she probably should, but given that the alternative is an early election with a real chance of Jeremy Corbyn actually coming to power, I say she should stay for now.

I mean yeah, normally after such a historic defeat the thing to do would be resign, but these aren't normal times and her resigning would just create more chaos. A different tory leader would not do any better with this mess and honestly I don't think a general election would solve much.

^^
Quite the username there! Welcome to Atlas :P

Yes, she's pretty incompetent how she handled Brexit. Corbyn should also go.

This, and soon. It's time for a clean slate.

At this point I don't see how Britain avoids a hard Brexit if May leaves. Hopefully, she'll either get her deal thru or trigger an at least temporary Remain to give time for more talks. However, once the current Brexit situation is resolved, by hard or soft Brexit or temporary Remain, she should resign.

No, and if the perception within Parliament was that a "no" vote meant May's resignation and a snap election then her deal would have won.  May's resistance to the idea of resigning immensely hurts her potential of being able to get a deal through Parliament. 

Tories are content to kick and scream and protest over May's deal, but none of them actually want to oust her because 1) there's literally no one else who can take the reins at the moment, and 2) the ensuing chaos means a snap GE, a probable LAB+SNP coalition, and the collapse of Brexit.

Yes.

Watch Tom Watson’s speech. She’s a useless PM who clearly lacks any of the skills to build alliances or relaiotionships with either MPs, the electorate or the EU.

Previous PMs like Blair/Thatcher/Wilson had vast number of faults, and policy flaws but were all objectively good at being PM. May is not.

Yes

She should resign from Parliament entirely

Cameron should be brought back as Prime Minister just for the sake of comeuppance. He started all this and made May a patsy for it. Don't get me wrong, May has proven to be completely incompetent, but it feels wrong for Cameron to have gotten away as he did with few consequences.