After Theresa May’s election disaster, almost two-thirds of Tory party members say they want their leader (and prime minister) to resign from her lofty position.
A snap survey conducted by the Conservative Home website revealed that 60 per cent of party members believe Mrs May should quit while just 37 per cent of the 1,500 members who took part said she should stay in post.
A mere six weeks ago, May seemed on course to destroy her main rivals, socialist Labour. In the last few weeks of the campaign, however, everything changed: Labour made a comeback in the polls and ended up destroying the Tories’ majority in the House of Commons. As a result, May is now left to form a minority government with her Tories, backed by the conservative DUP party from Northern Ireland. This after she called for early elections so she could enlarge her party’s majority.
Instead, she lost it altogether.
There are two main reasons why May lost. The first is that she didn’t take her rival, Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, seriously. She didn’t want to publicly debate him and pretended that it was all in the bag for her and the other Tories. If there’s one thing voters hate, it’s arrogance.
Secondly, and probably more importantly: May’s election platform was horrendous. Among other things, she wanted the elderly to pay for their own (health) care, which is truly not done in Britain. In the end, she did a 180, but that was only after public outrage that forced her to change course. So after clearly being out of touch with the average voter, she proved to be weak-willed too, a deadly combination.
The aforementioned Tory members also have an idea of who they want to succeed May:
Party sources suggested Boris Johnson, Amber Rudd and David Davis were being sounded out as possible replacements.
Of these three, Johnson is my favorite — by far. He’s charismatic, quirky (in a good way!), can relate to John Doe, is a passionate Atlanticist, and he was one of the strongest pro-Brexit voices of all. If he hadn’t supported Britain’s independence from the EU, chances are the referendum could’ve ended up with a completely different result.
Johnson speaks to average voters. May, not so much. There’s little doubt in my mind that the Tories would’ve won in a landslide if he had been their leader last Thursday.
Although May has vowed to “fight on” and is already assembling her cabinet, chances are she’ll be forced to resign a couple of months from now if not before. All those who support Brexit and a truly conservative agenda can only hope she’ll be replaced by Johnson.
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