There may be very few days when Theresa May didn’t hear the Mayday! Mayday! call during her time as a prime minister. This call has become even more intense today, the prime minister faces another difficult choice. She is facing a threat of mass resignations from the pro-EU ministers in her team if she doesn’t take the option of no deal off the table. Time is of the essence because, in just over a month, the UK will be crashing out of the EU with a deal or without any deal; unless the divorce is delayed. The prime minister has made numerous failed attempts to strike a deal with the EU and consistently delivered one message: she is not in favour of delaying the Brexit divorce process. Her unpopular deal has no support from the lawmakers in the parliament and she has faced several landside rejections many times.
The choice in front of her is arduous, if she delays the Brexit, the potential outcome could be even more disarray in her cabinet. This could even trigger a threat of bringing her government down by Torie rebellions who want the UK to leave the EU. On the other hand, if she sticks to her guns, and refuses to back the process of delaying the divorce, a mass resignation by MPs from her party is a done deal. This is all due to her own stubbornness because the deal she secured was never liked by anyone and she remained consistent with the idea that she is willing to make the gamble of leaving the EU with or without any deal.
Perhaps, the only imaginable choice for her is to agree that she will ponder extending the divorce process and balance the effects of this by saying: she will leave no stone unturned in an effort to secure a deal.
Brexit isn’t that simple, it was a wrong choice and the EU is determined to take every opportunity to remind the UK of this. This is because when it comes to the extension element, the EU has backed the idea by labelling it as the only rational choice but at the same time, they have also added that the extension should be until 2021; the short term extension will not yield any outcome.
An extension which can take the Brexit uncertainty until 2021 would be highly unpopular in the UK and it will only bring the threats of another referendum. May could always use this threat to her advantage in order to attract support. However, this comes at a time when the opposition party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has already backed the idea of the second referendum.
In this political bust, uncertainty in the business environment is at its peak. Sterling-dollar pair moved higher yesterday on the back of the hopes that the prime minister may be willing to support the Brexit delay process. This pushed the currency towards 1.3146 level, the high of the day is 1.3162 and the low is 1.3075. If later today, at 12:30 UK time, backs the idea of delaying the Brexit, we could see the momentum taking off once again which could push the currency above 1.32 mark against the dollar.
