May has consistently sowed division where she should have tried to generate national consensus. She has pursued a Brexit strategy designed first and foremost to keep the Conservative party unified and her premiership secure, the national interest barely an afterthought. And she has ridden roughshod over parliament at every turn: resisting giving it a say over triggering article 50; granting a meaningful vote on her deal only when compelled to do so; attempting to force MPs into voting for her deal by delaying vote after vote to take us closer to the cliff edge.
May’s televised address last week was the culmination of that strategy. “I am on your side,” she intoned to voters. “Parliament has done everything possible to avoid making a choice.” She embraced populist language that could have been uttered by any tinpot dictator looking to trample the democratic institutions frustrating their personal agenda. In our parliamentary democracy, May’s mandate to lead the country comes purely from any support she commands from the House of Commons. Her words were not only self-defeating but bordering on the dangerously unconstitutional.