Britain Must Now Contemplate a Grim Selection of Brexit Options

In a latest twist of the Brexit crisis, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May survived a vote of no confidence in Parliament last night. The confidence vote was called—not by the opposition but by 48 of her own MPs—after May withdrew a vote planned for Tuesday on the almost universally disliked Brexit deal she had assembled last month. May withdrew it because it had become clear she would lose, a ruse that provoked disgust across the political spectrum (and even a brief assault on a piece of British democracy’s costume jewelry, the Parliament chamber’s ceremonial mace). May thwarted the attempt to dethrone her, albeit by a narrow 200 to 117 votes (I repeat, from her own party).

She still won’t be around for much longer though. May only survived by promising beforehand not to stand for another election, further underlining the impression of her government as a runaway locomotive hurtling towards disaster. To a degree, May’s survival or departure is an irrelevance anyway: With or without her, the Brexit options for the U.K., which we will now look at, will essentially remain the same. What the chaos does do, however, is raise the stakes for Britain yet further, making it yet more likely that the U.K. will either stage another referendum or crash out of the E.U. without any deal in place at all.