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Brexit Means Brexit—or Does It? The Legacy of Theresa May's Discursive Treatment of Brexit
Abstract
With the looming reality of Brexit drawing closer, it is the intention of this article to explore Theresa May's post‐referendum communicative behaviour on Brexit—the very issue that came to define her premiership agenda—and uncover what legacy it has left behind. Building upon, extending and updating the emerging literature on May's discourse, the inquiry helps us understand how May acted through language in order to influence and change other people's attitudes towards and ways of looking at Brexit. The article argues that there are at least seven ways, closely interrelated and feeding into each other, in which her discursive construction of Brexit has left a somewhat bitter legacy, contributing to the Brexit political paralysis and inspiring substantial levels of confusion and exasperation, both within the UK and abroad.
... However, following Brexit and the loss of one of the biggest member states (Brusenbauch Meislova, 2019), the relations between large and small EU members have changed as the share of small members has increased and so has their aggregated relative size. This does not mean that small states always manage to find a common ground and are able to push their positions vis-à-vis the big member states; ...
The conclusion argues that small states face different challenges in different institutions, which impacts their strategies. Prioritization of specific goals and coalition building can be effective in the Council. By contrast, in the European Parliament the large number of committees requires small-state MEPs to spread out rather than specialize. However, as a result, they are well connected and deemed relatively influential within the EP. Finally, small states tend to propose more female Commissioners, potentially due to the advantages that come with an ability to meet the demand for female politicians. The chapters on the EU's foreign and security policies confirm these findings: small states can have influence in EU policy-making and can create situations where their needs are met. They are most likely to succeed when they build foreign policy coalitions, when they anticipate major economic developments and when they manage to acquire a high level of expertise in a policy area. However, the case studies also show that there is a risk of small states becoming policy-takes in cases where they cannot provide leadership in terms of ideas and expertise and/or fail to build political weight through significant coalitions.
... When the European Coal and Steel Community and later the European Economic Community were founded in the 1950s, large states represented 50 per cent of all member states. However, successive enlargements -especially since the mid-1990s -and the departure of the United Kingdom have drastically changed the composition of the EU (Sedelmeier, 2014;Brusenbauch Meislova, 2019) -at least when viewed through the prism of size of countries operationalized in terms of number of inhabitants. ...
Council Presidency is widely regarded as one of the most challenging responsibilities for EU countries, particularly for newcomers. Countries that joined the Union during the eastern enlargement in 2004 have presided over the EU at most twice, as the large number of members has made the presidency a sporadic occasion. This rarity elevates the significance for member states assuming the presidency, as they aspire to demonstrate their capability to lead the EU effectively during their six-month term. This paper examines the 2016 Slovak Council Presidency and why it changed its policy priorities. While energy policy was at first among Slovakia's top priorities and made it into the draft Presidency programme, in the final programme-and the Presidency itself-energy issues lost their key position and became only part of the day-today agenda. We argue that the Slovak Presidency functioned as a silencer of national preferences and assumed the role of an honest broker acting as a neutral mediator with no own preferences. It also sought to avoid controversial topics, including those related to energy policy. The paper thus contributes to the discussion about the functions of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. ARTICLE HISTORY
Women leaders must still negotiate the boundaries and limitations of a highly masculine office. This article compares the strategies and approaches of two UK Prime Ministers who sought to do so: Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. This article asks whether, and how, their positioning helped them to navigate the significant gendered barriers to women operating in executive institutions. A close comparison reveals the two leaders adopted a similar approach, styling themselves as ‘heroic’ and radical outsiders to govern within the masculine office of Prime Minister. In office, the two leaders adopted a comparable style, pursued a strong vision, and sought to closely control their inner courts. However, their performance and governing context made for very different outcomes. In their performance, Thatcher proved an adept communicator and operator, while May showed poor skills and communicative abilities. Moreover, while Thatcher navigated entrenched gender norms in an increasingly favourable context, May governed during the brittle politics of Brexit, over a far more deeply divided Cabinet and party.
This article explores and compares the political leadership of two successive British Prime Ministers, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, in their handling of the domestic politics of Brexit. Despite some similar dilemmas at the beginning of their premierships, their leadership delivered very different outcomes. The key argument developed here, using Richard Heffernan’s power resources model, is that the explanation for these outcomes does not only arise from a different political context and circumstances under which each prime minister pursued their Brexit policy. Rather Johnson, unlike May, made skilful use of the power resources at his command. He possessed more personal power resources and drew upon the available institutional power resources more effectively than May. As a result, unlike May, he was able to be predominant in his government’s Brexit policy. While we demonstrate the continued analytical value of Heffernan’s model, we also point to its limitations and suggest how it can be revised.
This chapter revisits the Brexit leadership of Theresa May from 2016 to her resignation in 2019. It explores the reasons which account for failure to successfully negotiate Brexit during her leadership. The legal, constitutional, and economic particularities of Brexit were never going to make Brexit an easy task to remedy, but this was not helped in the face of a series of domestic constraints that hindered May’s ability to fully grasp the reigns of leadership and devise credible solutions with her European counterparts. This chapter discusses May’s succession to the role of Prime Minister of the UK, and her inheritance of a divisive society and equally divisive parliament. It discusses her myopic decision to call a general election, her miscalculation of support for her leadership, and her subsequent failure to secure a parliamentary majority. The chapter argues that May’s legacy was not one of weakness but one of significant domestic constraint which made an already seemingly unsolvable situation harder to treat.
This chapter analyses the political leadership style and skills of Theresa May. Starting with the topic of party leadership, the chapter discusses May’s route to the top and management of her party. It then assesses how far the presence or absence of clear ideological goals and political aims contributed to success or failure in Number 10 (‘there is no May-ism’). This is followed by a detailed analysis of prime-ministerial methods and styles, including political communications, use of Number 10 advisers and Whitehall, relations with the Cabinet and ministerial teams and approaches to decision-making. Finally, the chapter will emphasise the circumstances and wider contexts in which the prime minister operated, posing insuperable challenges and offering limited opportunities for political achievement.
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