For someone who seems profoundly unintelligent, Theresa May has turned out to be a remarkably radical and inventive prime minister. She now operates on the principle that, despite leading a nation whose constitution is based on precedent, custom and practice, she can comfortably ignore precedent, custom and practice. The largest parliamentary defeat in history on 15 January was not enough to make her resign; she holds the same office that Neville Chamberlain did when, having in 1940 won the Norway debate by 81 votes, it was decided it was insufficient for him to stay in office. It beggars belief that any prime minister since the 1832 Reform Act, and probably before it, would have done anything other than resign at once after such an awesome defeat as May has endured.
Various factors empower her, however temporarily. The opposition is even more split than her own party. The leader of the opposition, a veteran Bennite anti-European long before the word “Brexiteer” was coined, is no more capable of presenting an honest way forward than May is. And, at a time when the Speaker, John Bercow, rewrites constitutional practice as he sees fit, she can simply defy precedent, custom and practice and continue – or try to continue – to sit at the head of the government, and defy her opponents to remove her.
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