Theresa May: ‘Wrecked’
The “controversy of the Northern Ireland border … in essence wrecked May’s attempt at a deal,” says David Davis, who served as her Brexit secretary but quit in 2018 over her draft plan for a closer customs relationship with the EU.
The problem was compounded by May’s disastrous political gamble to call a snap general election in 2017, in a bid to strengthen her hand negotiating Brexit. The Conservatives lost their majority and survived only with backing after the election from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — Northern Ireland’s leading unionist party, which would brook no move weakening the region’s standing as part of the United Kingdom.
By 2018, the EU was proposing a “backstop” deal on Northern Ireland, which would avoid a hard Irish border by keeping the region effectively inside EU customs territory unless the bloc struck a new, future trade deal with the U.K.
But that would have required customs barriers in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. No U.K. prime minister could accept that deal, May said.
“I think she was very committed to [the U.K. union] personally. I have no doubt at all about that,” said Rycroft. “[But] clearly she was under a lot of scrutiny from that point of view … because the DUP was essentially propping up her governments after the 2017 election.”
May’s solution was a Brexit deal applying a “backstop” to the entire U.K. MPs, including her own backbenchers and the DUP, voted it down three times in 2019. In the EU, leaders could see her power was “sort of draining away,” said Montgomery.
By 2019, she was gone from office, full of regret over failure to land a deal that worked for “a union of people — all of us.” Brexit “over-ran [May’s] whole administration,” said Baker.
Boris Johnson: ‘A Brexit for Britain’
Boris Johnson, the bombastic leader of the U.K.’s campaign to leave the EU, then took over No. 10 — and a promise to “get Brexit done” propelled him to a majority in another general election in 2019.
That allowed the Tories to shake off the DUP, freeing Johnson to make “a Brexit for Great Britain,” according to Rupert Yorke, a former Downing Street advisor to May, Johnson and Sunak.
Johnson’s solution to the Irish border was the Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed in 2019 and signed with the EU in 2020.
Europa Monitor is a seasoned News Editor with over a decade of experience in journalism. Known for his editorial expertise and commitment to accuracy, Europa Monitor leads teams to deliver high-quality news content.
