Oliver Kaye, argues that May wins five years at the expense of certainty
Before we get into the doom and gloom on all sides of having no majority for any party, Theresa May has secured a full mandate to negotiate leaving the EU, a new partnership with the EU, and new partnerships with the rest of the world (replacing the 750 agreements with 168 countries the UK currently benefits from through being in the EU). There are huge battles ahead of her.
A tough ask in a full mandate, let alone the half a mandate she previously had. Assuming she survives the full term (a big assumption I know), this what she has achieved.
She sacrificed 45 days at the beginning of the negotiation for two years at the tail end, and her ‘victory’ will provide some continuity – something that markets, and I suspect, the EU will welcome. Indeed the EU27 want to get on with the negotiations as much as the Brexiteers do.
However, and it is a big however, there will always be that constant niggling question at the back of everyone’s mind, that after anything between two and five years of ferocious negotiation and hard fought victories: “What if the UK Parliament don’t back the deals”.
Then we would really find out the meaning of chaos.
Theresa May rightly wanted, and needed, a strong mandate to back her. Her big mistake was not being straight with the public why she needed one.