When David Cameron resigned the morning of 23 June, he asserted that he would “steady the ship” before a new prime minister could “steer our country to its next destination”. Best of a bad lot Theresa May has now assumed captaincy at Number 10, but has made it clear she has no immediate plans to set sail for waters outside the European Union, declaring Article 50 won’t be activated in 2016. Instead, May has been reestablishing the United Kingdom as strong, unified and a core element in the international business and political worlds. This is a ship-steadying healing process - and prescient stage-setting for a post-Brexit Britain.

One front on which the ship must be steadied is the domestic. Deep striations now divide the In voters from the Out voters and we have plunged into a political pandemonium.

The quiet Remain campaigner May resolved intra-party discord by granting a respectable seven Cabinet positions to Boris Johnson and his band of Brexiteers, including three key roles relating to negotiating the EU - shrewdly distancing herself from the inevitable imbroglio of our exit. The ‘Tory civil war’ is a forgotten peculiarity at a time when a fractured Labour Party is facing its second leadership election in two years.

May has an ability to push firm assertiveness to its ugly autocratic extreme (the Snooper’s Charter blew a raspberry at citizens’ liberties and the Financial Times characterised her as a “get things done” politician “with a ruthless streak”). She is employing this to decisively steer the UK away from madness like a stern headmistress pulling an unruly classroom back from the brink of disaster. The PM didn’t press for a general election, a coldly calculated and viciously protective strategy that has left her without any mandate to govern, but guarantees some yearned-for stability. Her stalwart “Brexit means Brexit” statement is similarly harsh on the surface but strikingly soothing underneath. It supports a decision she opposed made by a misled and under-informed public in spite of a measly mandate of 4%, but means we can move past the conflict and strife and focus on the next step.

On a national scale, Scotland and Northern Ireland foster a seething resentment because they voted Remain by 62% and 55.8% respectively. May rushed to dig out the Tories’ dusty and rusty full name (the Conservative and Unionist Party) to help emphasise the “precious, precious bond” of the UK. She spoke with First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon as calls surged for a second Scottish independence referendum (‘indyref2’) which Sturgeon had termed “on the table”. May stopped by Stormont to confirm that she was invested in Northern Irish “peace and stability” and an exit from the EU that “must work for Northern Ireland”. “I made clear when I became prime minister that I place particular value on the precious bonds between the nations of the United Kingdom,” reflected May and her early days as PM have shown it.

Once again, I disagree with the ideology underpinning May’s actions. If Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay, it is undemocratic and Anglocentric to force them to leave. Considering the Tories granted an advisory referendum when the UK sought to leave the EU, it’s even hypocritical. But once again I recognise and admire the steely-eyed pragmatism of May. A splintering UK would be a weak negotiator at Michel Barnier’s bargaining table and a divorced England a small-time player on the global stage.

Russell Watkins, Department for International Development May has been meeting with EU leaders including Angela Merkel

The second front is international. The UK needs to repair its relationships with EU nations before activating Article 50 not only to ensure a kinder deal, but also to guarantee we maintain a key spot in international developments after Brexit. Foreign Minister Johnson outlined such a plan of “reshaping Britain’s global profile and identity as a great global player”.

Bumbling BoJo has been the May ministry’s icebreaker for a flurry of foreign diplomats including US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, but May herself has been handling the heavy lifting, including touring EU capitals.

Her first trip overseas as PM was respectfully reserved for Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, de facto leader of the EU and a Thatcher-esque trailblazer for May as a tough-as-nails female European leader. May opened a joint press conference in German, seeming quite chuffed with her pastiche of Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner”, and the two leaders seemed to get on famously. A working relationship with Germany and the EU will be fundamental as negotiations are made and after the UK leaves the EU.

When Japan’s Softbank bought UK tech firm ARM Holdings for £24 billion, May and Chancellor Philip Hammond welcomed the deal and a spokeswoman for the PM suggested that it showed “we can make a success out of leaving the EU” for businesses and the economy despite May recently questioning whether large foreign takeovers were in the national interest. May is possibly burying her concerns because she is powerless to interfere in the world of private business - ex-Business Secretary Vince Cable assured the BBC there was little May could do about the takeover - or because she wants to develop a cordial relationship with Japan’s private industries and to reaffirm the world that the UK is still a reliable hub for business despite the 52%.

This message was perhaps undermined by the eleventh hour Hinkley Point C delay. The nuclear power station is an $18bn project introduced two PMs ago and set to be largely funded by EDF and CGN, French and Chinese energy giants respectively. EDF is 85% owned by the French state. We don’t know why the project was postponed, but EDF executives were reportedly left surprised and a Chinese state-run news organisation has stated it doesn’t understand “the suspicious approach … to Chinese investment”.

In the humanitarian world, May is “setting up the first ever government task force on modern slavery”; the sequel to her 2015 Modern Slavery Act decisively places Britain at the heart of an “international response”, “continu[ing] to lead this fight on the global stage” In terming Britain “bold” and “confident in its values”, May is perhaps describing the UK she is trying to shape rather than the one she has right now. Positioning the UK as an international leader entrenches us - and the PM herself as she builds on her own Act of Parliament - as a geopolitical cornerstone.

Theresa May’s early policies have been linked by the common thread of realistically and opportunistically dealing with the consequences of 23 June and painstakingly putting the pieces in place for the post-Brexit era. The scale has been escalating from her party to her nation to the European Union and beyond. Soon May must follow this thread into her biggest decision in activating Article 50.