Laws of Physics in the Age of Theresa May

In 2017, Theresa May has come full circle. Poll after poll, the Conservative party, were marching towards complete parliament control but Jeremy Corbyn defied against the pollster, the pundits and his fellow Labour MPs by preventing much-predicted tories landslide and instead created some remarkable gains across the board.

Tories have acquiesced to May's terrible image to escape harsh judgment at the exit polls. One year after gaining control of parliament with a manageable majority, Tories were routed by Labour in the generic ballot test, a gamble that backfired as the UK wake up to a hung parliament.

By the look of it, we can assume that the laws of physics apply to politics in the Age of Theresa May. Isaac Newton’s third law that says every action has an equal and opposite reaction explains much about the Labour Party's resurgence. Physics professors teach that force always comes in pairs, and true to form, the disastrous leadership of Theresa May and her government sums it up. The outcome of the Newtonian cycle has resulted in a minority government which has weakened the power of Theresa May immensely by relying heavily on the DUP that led to a political reaction questioning May's legitimacy and credibility to lead as Prime Minister.

While the prime minister stuttering campaign failed to deliver the prognosticated Tory wins that were predicted by polls, she yet again suffered a humiliating defeat in the Commons regarding the Brexit deal. The government lost a significant vote on an amendment introduced by Dominic Grieve that would require the final Brexit agreement with Brussels to be approved by Parliament.

This result was yet another setback for May, who had a year to forget. With the sex abuse scandal shadowing over Conservative Party and should Parliament vote against any final deal, it would force the Prime Minister to renegotiate with the European Union that could result in UK trade fall under the rules of the World Trade Organization; a path which is called hard Brexit.

As the Brexit talks have moved to the next stage, Theresa May said that the decision to move into the subsequent negotiations were "an important step on the road to delivering a smooth and orderly Brexit." However, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the following sets of negotiations would be considerably harder than the previous stage. "Phase two may now be ushered in, but obviously that is an even tougher piece of negotiation than we have had up to now." Donald Tusk also quoted to have said: "The second phase will I think to be more challenging than the first phase."

One thing we all can agree on - after the six months May had, with the first stage of Brexit talks completed, she may experience a moment of a sigh of relief.

But with the resurgence of Labour Party and rebellions among Tory backbenchers. Theresa May can only hope 2018 be the year where her premiership is strong and stable as she yearned.

Abdulla Elmi is a student at Birkbeck College, London.
Written on December 26, 2017.