Finally, Theresa May is resigning. She has been marked down as the worst Prime Minister in UK history. No doubt commentators and, eventually, historians will put forward their analysis and views of May and her tenure.
From an outsider's perspective, a comparison with Neville Chamberlain seems apt. Columnist Madeleine Kearns obliges:
Compromise is indeed the stuff of life. But it is not the same as weakness. In April 1938, Neville Chamberlain, in responding to the threat of fascism on the continent, sought out a number of “compromises” that, if enacted, would have proven disastrous. In an attempt at “peace with honour,” he conceded to almost all of Hitler’s demands. Of course, the EU isn’t quite Hitler. And, thankfully, Brexit is hardly a world war. But it is the greatest peacetime issue of the last century. Westminster knows this only too well, as I wrote in October last year in a profile on the former foreign secretary and Brexiteer Boris Johnson:
'In the Palace of Westminster, next to the bomb-damaged Churchill’s arch in Members’ Lobby, are four bronze statues that tower over some smaller busts of lesser-known prime ministers. The looming figures are David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, and Margaret Thatcher. Pointing to the latter two, a trusted Johnson aide told me, “We are living in as decisive times as these. And we need a prime minister of such stature.” Not Boris, surely! some will protest, knowing full well that Britain could do much worse. And already has.'It remains to be seen what will happen. Will Brexiteer Boris become the new leader of the Conservative Party? If so, how will he chart a course going forward with the Brexit Party? Again from the outsider's perspective, it seems to us that the Conservative Party may well end up being a remnant of what it once was. Like the UK Liberal Party of today.
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