May was in a strong position before the snap election. But her egocentric personality and intellectual isolation demanded a personal mandate, not a hand-me-down from Cameron. Moreover rebel Tories on both sides of the Brexit argument in a party chronically split for decades on this issue, meant that troublemakers could inflict defeat upon the government on key votes in the future. May does not like to share power as we know. There is a lot of me, my and I. She did not even want to consult Parliament over triggering Article 50. That was a straw in the wind.
Now she is back after her election victory with the largest number of votes and seats, but dressed in the stark robes of the biggest political humiliation of modern times, stripped of her majority, a prisoner of her angry cabinet, itself split on the key issue of Brexit and at the mercy of her party, which actually never got to vote for her in the first place. Power has passed from the executive to parliament. That is all ghastly but it gets worse. The Leader of the Opposition, one Jeremy Corbyn, who was before the election a figure of whom she made much fun and who was regarded as a certain goner, emerges as a national hero, his party increasing its vote share by twice the level of the Tories and, in the latest opinion polls, now the preferred choice in the country for Prime Minister.
As for the negotiations to leave the EU, they have at least started. but the weakness of the Brexit hand is now being laid bare. Everybody is being polite, but the EU is making the running. May arrived in Brussels for a summit and dinner yesterday, with a brave face wearing a forced smile. When she left early because she is no longer welcome at club meetings, in the brief clip later cut, she looked worn out and at the end of her tether.
She is.