Why is Theresa May's premiership in such turmoil?

[Suburbia]

Why is British Prime Minister Theresa May's premiership in such turmoil? Lackluster message to voters, a lackluster and comical Tory convention keynote speech, etc. Why?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/04/know-kind-woman-theresa-may-worst-nightmare-losing-control/

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/05/opinions/theresa-may-has-to-go-mcternan-opinion/index.html

[mileslunn]

Basically over two reasons.

1.  Brexit which was going to be a headache for any PM as the main reason the leave side won is most want to end the free movement of labour, but the EU has made clear if you want to be part of the single market you must allow free mobility of labour so getting access to the European market without free mobility of labour is going to be tough.  Also the EU wants to make an example of Britain so others don't follow.

2.  Losing her majority.  She called an election three years earlier than necessary and was faced with a hard left Labour leader yet her party lost seats and votes.  She should have never called the early election and also the fact she nearly lost to someone like Jeremy Corbyn says a lot, mind you to be fair I don't think many understood the generational divide in views and how socialist viewpoints that were considered toxic amongst older Brits were quite popular with younger Brits.  Corbyn's success amongst millennials was not too dissimilar to Bernie Sanders similar one.

[MAINEiac4434]

Because she's a weak and feckless leader.

[Blair]

To give my convoluted thoughts...

She got the job because she was the least offensive, and least disliked candidate who survived until the 2016 leadership election; she was effectively crowned by the party because those on the left wanted to stop Boris Johnson or Andrea Leadsom winning, and she was supported by the right because she was a relatively right wing Home Secretary who clashed with the 'modernisers'.

I hope I posted before the election about her flaws; as it's the one prediction I've gotten correct. And that is that she's basically Gordon Brown MK.2 as PM minus the political strategy or skills. She very slowly climbed up the party, got the job as Home Secretary four days before the election as the former got sacked for being homophobic, and then basically didn't cock up as Home Secretary. She wasn't a particularly masterful minister; but she knew her brief, knew how to shift the blame, and avoided drama.

This lead her to 2016, where she took no real strong stance in the referendum beyond one speech supporting Remain; which allowed her to watch whilst Osborne, Gove, Crabb, Johnson etc blew themselves up in the aftermath.


It's no surprise that her campaign was a disaster; namely because she never had a national campaign before. Corbyn had two leadership elections, Cameron had 5 years as opposition leader, Blair had 8 years in various roles etc. It would be like Tom Perez running for President in 2016 and completely falling apart.

Things like putting fox hunting in her manifesto, not attending TV debates, not knowing how to really talk to the media or voters, supporting the hardest of brexiters, not raising the public pay cap for teachers, nurses etc/ It was also an election where living standards were falling, and after 7 years of austerity people wanted something more.

At the very worse I thought she'd get a 30-40 seat majority; which would have been seen as a failure but the hung parliament was one of the biggest failings since 1945.


Now since then Tory MPs have worked out that she's not a good campaigner, is pretty unpopular and also have remembered they don't like a lot of her policies; she's to the left of Cameron on some parts of the Economy but to the right on immigration; which puts her against about 50-80 of her own MPs.

She's had a fair few cock ups; hugging close to Trump, not meeting the victims of Grenfell, making the deal with the DUP, and now delivering a disaster of a speech when she needed a great performance.

TL;DR: She's a crap campaigner, who cocked up an election, and has no base in the party beyond being a vessel for Brexit.

[Angel of Death]

I have this conspiracy theory that some Tories are deliberately trying to bring down their own government so that it will be Labour, not them, who will be left holding the bag when the consequences of Brexit will fully manifest.

[cp]

I have this conspiracy theory that some Tories are deliberately trying to bring down their own government so that it will be Labour, not them, who will be left holding the bag when the consequences of Brexit will fully manifest.

I've entertained that idea, too, but I think it's unlikely for three reasons:

1. Conspiracies that complicated are impossible to keep a secret and involve more intelligence and cunning than anyone possesses.

2. There's no particular reason for Tory MPs to believe Corbyn wouldn't just rescind Article 50 as soon as he took office. Consider, if you were Corbyn and got elected, what would make more sense: to carry on with an obviously disastrous policy that was entirely the creation of your opponents, or to call it off (and, yes, probably break a manifesto pledge) by blaming your predecessors for wasting too much time and not doing enough planning?

3. The Tories are genuinely terrified of Corbyn being PM.