Personally, I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility. Of course I hope for such an outcome, but I'm encouraged that little Theresa May has done seems to suggest that she really wants to follow a course other than this: she could have activated Article 50 by now. She could have come out openly against Brexit by purging Johnson, Fox and Leadsom from her Cabinet rather than installing them near the top.
Another reason to suspect that this could be the game plan is to see the world from May's perspective: she is a politician, and politicians usually try to navigate their way through whatever waters are ahead. She probably feels she can live with Brexit if it happens, even though she believes politically that it's best not to quit the EU.
Even if we indulge this view, there is an increasing worry. May may seek to offer decisiveness, security, optimism, but the referendum unleashed forces and views in British society that, while they may not result in the kind of revolution we've prided ourselves on avoiding by comparison to the Continent, are certainly damaging our social cohesion.
Amber Rudd's disappointingly stupid proposal to list foreign workers is one. This news, that the Government has decided not to listen to 'foreign' academics, is another. Even if we believe that Theresa May's course will allow us to retain EU membership, to fight the madness of Brexit and win, the journey will leave us damaged, exhausted, a shade of the country--and the society--we were.
Tony Blair's legacy was overshadowed by Iraq, inevitably. Inevitably, David Cameron's legacy--those positive steps for which he was rightly praised, in the end, by Jeremy Corbyn, such as equal marriage--all that will be eclipsed utterly by the lost gamble of 23 June 2016, which failed to save the Tory Party and on which date our divisions finally cut so deep that we may reasonably fear that they may never heal.
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