Today Theresa May confirmed what we already knew – her time as Prime Minister is over.
Three years ago she came to power, promising to help those who were “just about managing”. Her time in government has been an abject failure on that score. She has done nothing to repair our broken public services and has seemed satisfied to oversee further decline in public sector funding, pay and jobs. She will not be missed by those who work in public services or those who rely on them.
Meanwhile, her appalling handling of the Grenfell Tower disaster, her kowtowing to the dangerous far-right Presidency of Donald Trump, her poisonous “hostile environment” and its impact on the Windrush Generation, and of course her abject failure to resolve the Brexit crisis, will be how she is remembered.
It is not a legacy anyone would want, yet it is exactly the legacy she deserves.
Normally the departure of a Prime Minister who looks set to go down in history as a failure would be a moment for cheer. Yet working people should fear what comes next. The next Prime Minister will be chosen by the hard right of the Tory Party, who want more austerity, increased privatisation and fewer rights for working people. The spectre of a government led by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove or Dominic Raab looms large on the political horizon. There is a real chance that things may get significantly worse before they get any better.
That’s why, at this time of severe national crisis, there must be a general election. The Prime Minister who takes over from Theresa May should be chosen by the people in every one of the UK’s communities, not just by the Brexiteer boys’ club in the tea rooms and bars of Westminster.
If that election is not forthcoming, the Tories will have no mandate for the inevitable social and economic calamity.