Brexit Imperiled by Incompetence

Britain’s Prime Minister has bungled Brexit, which puts significant economic gains at risk, says Iain Murray, CEI senior fellow and co-author of a 2014, award-winning Brexit blueprint, Cutting the Gordian Knot.

“The British Prime Minister Theresa May is ‘in office, but not in power,’ as [British politician] Norman Lamont once said of then- PM John Major. Having negotiated a humiliating deal with the European Union, supposedly to deliver Brexit, she has found the deal unacceptable to anyone but her cabinet. As a result, she has is attempting to pull a vote on the deal from Parliament with the intention of renegotiating the most troublesome part. The trouble is that Parliament may insist on a vote, and the EU has said it will not renegotiate.

“Meanwhile, the European Court of Justice has just ruled that a country that invokes Article 50 can revoke it without the approval of other member states, which is actually a victory for national sovereignty, but for Mrs. May to do so would delay Brexit so much that it will likely never happen.

“Mrs. May’s incompetence has imperiled the delivery of Brexit. She has nowhere to go but out of office. She should resign and let someone else manage what is likely to be a ‘no deal’ Brexit, which will come with an economic shock, but if managed correctly should result in significant benefits as the UK adjusts to life without the dead hand of European regulation weighing heavily on its commerce.

• View the report by Iain Murray and Rory Broomfield, Cutting the Gordian Knot A Roadmap for British Exit from the European Union
• View more Brexit analysis by Iain Murray

Iain Murray

Britain’s Prime Minister has bungled Brexit, which puts significant economic gains at risk, says Iain Murray, CEI senior fellow and co-author of a 2016, award-winning Brexit blueprint, Cutting the Gordian Knot.