Editorial

The Guardian view on May and Brexit: a prime minister gone rogue

Theresa May has put no deal firmly back on the table in flagrant defiance of parliament and the dictates of responsible government

Wed 20 Mar 2019 18.31 GMTLast modified on Wed 20 Mar 2019 19.10 GMT

Theresa May arriving at parliament on Wednesday. ‘Her political capital is all spent. She has no allies at home or abroad.’ Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

To achieve anything in EU diplomacy it helps to speak European. That does not require a command of continental languages. What matters, when dealing at the highest level in Brussels, is an ability to acknowledge the common political and economic interests that underpin the whole European project.

Theresa Mayhas no fluency in that idiom. She cannot even fake it. Since becoming prime minister, her relations with the EU have been marked by tin-eared diplomacy. She is bad enough at cultivating relationships in Westminster. In Brussels she has none.

May’s latest screeching U-turn makes her utterly unfit to lead

Wed 20 Mar 2019 16.20 GMTLast modified on Wed 20 Mar 2019 19.17 GMT

‘This latest example is the Russian doll of reversals, with several other reversals contained within it.’ Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters

No matter how bad you think Theresa May is, she always manages to get worse. Her record of insisting on one thing, only to U-turn weeks, days or even hours later is almost impressive in its scope. There would be no snap election, she vowed – and then there was one. Her Brexit deal would be subject to a meaningful vote in December– and then the vote was pulled, punted into the new year. Brexit would happen on 29 March – and now it won’t.

This latest example is the Russian doll of reversals, with several other reversals contained within it. For just last week, May’s de facto deputy, David Lidington, was adamant that any delay to Brexit would have to be lengthy, since a short, one-off extension would be both pointless – leaving too little time to do anything – and “downright reckless”, as well as being “completely at odds with the position” MPs had taken the previous evening. May had told the Commons that, if MPs voted down her agreement with the EU – which they did – she would be seeking a long extension. She delivered the same message to the cabinet only yesterday.