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May’s Exit Is Long Overdue

Her refusal to leave and her party's refusal to remove her have left them in the absurd position they are in now.
theresamay

James Forsyth calls on Theresa May to “lead or go”:

What should worry No 10 most about the past ten days is how many level-headed Tory MPs are beginning to think it is worth rolling the dice; that while a change of leader might be messy, things can hardly be worse than they are now. This is not mutiny, as such, it’s something more powerful: a growing conviction that this drift can’t go on and that it’s their job, as MPs, to ensure their party and country is given that direction. May can either provide that leadership herself — or lose her grip on the party and on power.

May should have resigned shortly after the election debacle last year, and failing that she should have done so in September. Her refusal to leave and her party’s refusal to remove her have left them in the absurd position they are in now. Staying on in office has not made May more effective or competent, and it has not restored the authority that she set on fire when she lost a snap election that she called unnecessarily. Keeping her as leader has not made the Tories more popular or more capable of governing, and now they are being dragged down by a leader that they can’t bring themselves to depose. It should be plain to everyone watching that May cannot provide the needed leadership, and she has been proving that again and again for the last eight months, so I’m not sure why anyone would expect that to change now that she is politically weaker than ever. When a political leader has failed as comprehensively as May has, resignation is the appropriate course of action. When the leader won’t do the decent thing and leave, it is up to her colleagues to insist that she goes. They have already left it far too long, and the more they continue to delay the more difficult the transition becomes.

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