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BRITAIN-EU-BREXIT-POLITICS-MAY,PROFILE
UK’s May ploughs on in historic Brexit mission
LONDON, Dec 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Theresa May has proudly adopted one
Conservative grandee’s dismissal of her as a “bloody difficult woman”.
The prime minister’s obduracy is on full display as she heads fighting into
a Conservative party confidence vote late Wednesday that will define not just
her own future as leader, but Britain’s Brexit destiny too.
The Oxford-educated daughter of a vicar said she would contest the vote
among Conservative members of parliament, forced by a number of dissident
MPs, “with everything I’ve got”.
It was a typically defiant performance delivered outside 10 Downing Street,
which she took over after her predecessor David Cameron walked out, hours
after voters opted in June 2016 for Britain to exit the European Union.
May herself campaigned in the referendum to remain in the EU. But she has
since fought tenaciously to implement the voters’ verdict against resistance
from both those who think it was a terrible mistake, and the hardliners who
want a clean break with the EU.
She compares herself to her cricketing hero Geoffrey Boycott, who was a
byword for doggedness as a batsman, and gleefully seized on the “bloody
difficult” put-down delivered by party elder Kenneth Clarke.
But May’s perseverance has also been characterised as intransigence, not
least in her adoption of inflexible “red lines” in the Brexit negotiations
that critics say has led to the current impasse.
She eschews gossip and networking, proving herself through hard work,
spending six years in the tough job of home secretary (interior minister)
before succeeding Cameron.
Her reserved nature often makes for stilted relations with world leaders
and voters. Her style of repeating the same phrases and avoiding direct
questions has earned her another nickname in the media — “Maybot”.
– ‘Goody two shoes’ –
May, 62, described herself in a 2012 interview as a “goody two shoes” whose
Protestant faith defined her upbringing.
She listened to cricket matches on the radio with her father and knew she
wanted to become a politician when she was just 12.
May studied geography at the University of Oxford, where she met her
husband Philip, a banker, after reportedly being introduced by future
Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto.
The couple never had children and May devoted herself to a life of public
service that saw her become Conservative Party chairwoman in 2002.
She made her first splash by telling her Tories at an annual conference to
stop being “the nasty party” if they wanted to unseat Labour leader Tony
Blair.
But her 2010-16 stint as home secretary saw May adopt isolationist rhetoric
that included a vow to create “a really hostile environment for illegal
migration”.
Yet May’s own faith in a “great, global” Britain did not translate into a
rejection of the EU as a whole.
“Britain is too small a country to cope outside the European Union,” she
said in an April 2016 address.
– ‘Brexit means Brexit’ –
But Britons voted to split by a 52-48 margin and May took over from Cameron
after winning the leadership contest with a vow that “Brexit means Brexit”.
It became her mantra — a gritty determination to bear down and get the job
done no matter the political cost.
That job became immeasurably harder after May blundered into calling a snap
June 2017 election that she hoped would bury domestic opposition to her
Brexit plans.
She ended up losing her majority and entering a forced marriage of
convenience with Northern Ireland’s fervently anti-EU Democratic Unionist
Party.
The DUP joined Tory hardliners along with many pro-EU MPs in opposing May’s
watered-down Brexit deal, negotiated arduously with Brussels, forcing her
into the embarrassing step of postponing the withdrawal vote this week.
But the prime minister remains adamant that the deal — and her leadership
— is the best on offer.
“Weeks spent tearing ourselves apart will only create more divisions,” she
said Wednesday. “I stand ready to finish the job.”
BSS/AFP/ARS/1713 hrs