Our correspondent in London reports on the mood over there now that Theresa May's plan for Brexit has suffered a second defeat in Parliament -- a defeat that has been characterized as "significant," "crushing," "major," and "catastrophic." Here's Leon's dispach. DL
Dear David
The Oxbridge elite can talk of little else than Brexit -- how to manage it. The country is more politically divided than ever I can remember it to be. If the vote to leave the EU was a harbinger of the Trump election, what in the States could mirror the chaos now prevailing here as the House of Commons rejects every proposal brought to it by PM May?
Are people fed up with Theresa May [pictured left]? Hard to say. She inherited this mess from her predecessor, who called for a referendum on exiting the European Union, thought for sure the move would be defeated, was stunned when it wasn't, and promptly resigned. There is something very sympathetic about Ms May and how she has conducted herself, remained calm and carried on. She has shuttled back and forth between London and Brussels with proposals and modifications of proposals -- it's like H. Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy but his worked better.
Of course what May has in her favour is that Labour is led by Corbyn, whose anti-Semitism is so blatant that some members of his own party have abandoned it. The wonder is that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the longtime leaders of Labour, tolerated Corbyn, but that may be explained by the fact that he was an obscure backbencher who posed no threat to them or to Labour.
Poor Theresa lost her voice yesterday and there you had the perfect metaphor for her. No doubt she will continue her Sisyphean struggle to figure out how the UK can sever its European ties in a reasonable way. A "hard" Brexit with an abrupt cancellation of all existing compacts and trade agreements -- and with the probability of a "hard" border between Northern Ireland (which is part of Britain) and Ireland (which is part of the EU) -- would be unconscionable. But we could be heading that way.
Dublin, Frankfurt, Paris, and New York have benefited from the uncertainty surrounding financial institutions centered in London. The blow to London's banking preeminence in Europe is real though probably not fatal.
At high table at Balliol the other night one wit commented that he had heard there was "Brexit envy" in the United States. This was greeted with laughter, for I wager that there is absolutely no one anywhere who envies us this sad spectacle. But now, dear David, I am anxious to know how this whole debacle is getting discussed in America. -- Leon
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Dear Leon,
I wish I could say that Americans are discussing Brexit options with great passion or with at least the sort of intense and amused curiosity that I recall in London, where I was, during the Anita Hill hearings. The general indifference to the rest of the world does us little credit. Some people I know, who like spending summers in France, may suspend this practice given what they hear of sporadic acts of violence and terrorism there. But nobody's canceling their Wimbledon tickets if they're lucky enough to have them.
If it's any consolation we have a Congress as dysfunctional as your Parliament.
You have my sympathy and my hope that common sense will prevail as it used to do in Britain. We've got a lot of idiocy here, of course, but it's more fun talking about Byron and Shelley with you as we used to do. Do you still have that tawny port that I liked so much?
David
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