May’s failures take their inevitable toll

Theresa May has fallen on her sword. In a day of high drama, the prime minister choked back tears as she set out a timetable to leave the job she professed was the honour of her life to hold. There is no doubt her sentiment was genuine.

But history is unlikely to hold Theresa May’s premiership in such high regard.

Her three years in office have been littered with calamities, with her unopposed coronation as David Cameron’s successor one of a few occasions when events went her way.

Some of the wounds were self-inflicted, such as calling of the 2017 general election, a move which unleashed an electoral backlash that rose Labour from the dead.

There were the gaffes such as her cringeworthy 2017 conference address to the Tory faithful, or her entrance to the same stage the following year as the dancing queen.

There was austerity and a domestic welfare agenda that was attacked for making the lives of some of society’s most vulnerable worse.

On her watch, British citizens were murdered in Salisbury and other terror attacks. She hid after the Grenfell Tower disaster.

The defining issue of Mrs May’s premiership was Brexit and her attempts to broker an deal with the European Union worth selling to Parliament.

It was a task to which she gave heart and soul. Personal negotiations delivered a withdrawal agreement which was a fudge few at Westminster could stomach and which was doomed to failure.

Time after time though, Mrs May showed intransigence when flexibility was required.

Three times she brought her agreement before parliament and three times she was forced to walk away humiliated like few — if any — Prime Ministers before.

Ultimately, Brexit was the task that defeated her and brought her premiership to a juddering halt.

Words of sympathy from her colleagues were poney and potential successors are gathering, with Boris Johnson, inevitably, leading the unseemly charge.

The winner will have to finally deliver Brexit or explain why it cannot be done. Few would envy them.