Brexit -- about the UK's internal stresses?

[lpetrich]

The Brexit crisis is more about the UK and less about Europe by Mano Singham. Noting It was never about Europe. Brexit is Britain’s reckoning with itself | Fintan O’Toole | Opinion | The Guardian by Fintan O'Toole

From FOT's bit:

...
The visible collapse of the Westminster polity this week may be a result of Brexit, but Brexit itself is the result of the invisible subsidence of the political order over recent decades.

...
What we see with the lid off and the fog of fantasies at last beginning to dissipate is the truth that Brexit is much less about Britain’s relationship with the EU than it is about Britain’s relationship with itself. It is the projection outwards of an inner turmoil. An archaic political system had carried on even while its foundations in a collective sense of belonging were crumbling. Brexit in one way alone has done a real service: it has forced the old system to play out its death throes in public. The spectacle is ugly, but at least it shows that a fissiparous four-nation state cannot be governed without radical social and constitutional change.

MS:

In watching this train wreck from a distance, I have been struck by Theresa May’s performance. ... She seems to me to be a hard-working person, the kind of competent middle manager who can be relied upon to successfully implement a clearly articulated policy that is given to her. But she simply does not seem to have the ability to rise to this occasion and does not seem to realize her limitations.

Interesting assessment.

Unfortunately the Conservative party and the ruling class in the UK generally seem to be so terrified of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister that they have no choice but to stick with her as she steers the ship of state into the iceberg that everyone can clearly see lies straight ahead.

 

[bilby]

Brexit was always about the British Conservative party's internal stresses.

It's got bugger all to do with Europe, and precious little to do with any other UK polity than the tory party - as parasitised by the far right nationalists in various garbs from the vile UKIP, via the outright fascist BNP, to the protestant fundamentalist insanity of the Ulster unionists.