Perhaps Theresa May, the presumptive new Prime Minister of Britain, can make the country seem a little less leaderless. PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL COURT / GETTY

The story of how Theresa May, the United Kingdom’s Home Secretary, became the presumptive Prime Minister is one of tragi-farcical, politico-comic self-destruction. It has played out with slapstick speed since the morning after the nation voted to leave the European Union, two and a half weeks ago, and the Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, who had campaigned against Brexit, said that he would resign rather than preside over it. At the time, Cameron figured that he’d stick around until November, and there was an assumption in many quarters that he’d be succeeded by Boris Johnson, an M.P. and the former mayor of London, who likes to preen about how disorderly he is. But on Monday, standing in front of 10 Downing Street, Cameron said that Britain would “have a new Prime Minister in that building behind me by Wednesday evening,” and that it would be May, who had his support. She might have been on the job even sooner than that, except that, this being Britain, taking power still involves a visit to the palace, and the Queen is out of town.

Brexit has not brought out the best in British political culture, and one can say that even as an American in the age of Donald Trump. The largest issues have been the careless smashing of alliances, the lies to and the scorn for voters (by both sides, if more by Leave) that enabled the Brexit victory, and the realization by non-British E.U. citizens that many of their neighbors view them as contemptible foreigners. But it’s worth noting that the whole shakeup has been conducted with a striking lack of dignity. Some of the most absurd claims have been pronounced in what Sarah Vine, the wife of the Justice Minister, Michael Gove, referred to in a parody-defying Daily Mail column as “erudite vowel sounds.” (Such sounds were how she could tell that the reporters gathered outside her window, as the sun rose on the Brexit vote tally, "weren’t the usual nocturnal neighbourhood ne’er-do-wells.”) Gove, who was Johnson’s sidekick in the Leave campaign, turned on him, which meant that they both went down fast in the Tory leadership race, with much talk in the tabloids about knives in backs and fronts. The final self-inflicted blow, by May's last-standing rival, the Energy Minister, Andrea Leadsom, was what might be called Mumgate. It started when the Times of London ran an interview with Leadsom on Friday with the headline

BEING A MOTHER GIVES ME EDGE ON MAY—LEADSOM Tory minister says she will be better leader because childless home secretary lacks ‘stake in future’

It went on to quote Leadsom, who often included the phrase “as a mum” in her pro-Leave statements, as saying that May “possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people. But I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.” This, she said, set her apart from May as a potential leader. She added, “I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn't have children, so I don't want this to be 'Andrea has children, Theresa hasn't,' because I think that would be really horrible.” But, she went on, "genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake.” In other words, Andrea has children; Theresa hasn’t.

As a matter of logic, this disparagement of childless leaders is ludicrous. There are good and bad leaders with and without children, and one can just as glibly argue that the focus on one’s own children’s fortunes can be distracting for a politician. Among the more incoherent elements in Leadsom’s remarks to the Times was that May might think about the long-term state of the economy, while she herself would be properly focussed on her children’s more immediate job prospects. It is all the more strange for a spokesperson for Leave, a campaign built around the irrational power of patriotism, to assume that abstract love of country would not be motive enough. And, as a matter of politics, Leadsom’s comments were a wreck. She insulted the childless, and she seemed personally cruel to May, who has quietly said in the past that she is, indeed, sad about having never had children. (May, who is fifty-nine, has been married to her husband, a banker she met when they were both students at Oxford, for thirty-five years.)

A Conservative M.P., Sir Alan Duncan, called the remarks “vile,” tweeting, "I'm gay and in a civil partnership. No children, but ten nieces and nephews. Do I not have a stake in the future of the country?” Leadsom, as it happens, is also opposed to same-sex marriage. She might be understood, in American terms, as a cross between Carly Fiorina and Michele Bachmann, except with less experience than either. She responded to the Mumgate criticism by attacking the Times, tweeting that the story was “truly appalling and the exact opposite of what I said. I am disgusted.” Leadsom demanded that the paper release the transcript, which it did, along with the audio, and which not only confirmed the story but made Leadsom look worse. When the Times asked, "What is the main difference between you and Theresa May?," her children and her “huge” family were practically the first things that Leadsom mentioned, after a passing reference to her knowledge of the economy and her “optimism.” She may have wanted to keep any discussion of her business career brief. Her years in the City, London’s financial district, had been one of her main political selling points, until it emerged that her résumé was exaggerated. Her claims that she had helped steer Barclays through the financial crisis were, according to executives who spoke to the Financial Times, based on a “somewhat fanciful” view of her position there. She hadn’t been headhunted to work at a hedge fund as a managing director; she had been a marketing director, and had been hired by her brother-in-law, who ran the fund.

And yet, after a series of votes by Tory M.P.s, Leadsom was the last remaining challenger to May for the Party leadership. How did what is still one of the world’s major powers end up in this state? Part of the blame goes to the tolerance of Johnson and his “shambolic” style of politics, for which he always seemed to want to be patted on the head and which finally, and too late, became too much for everybody. Johnson lost Gove’s support when, instead of sitting down after the referendum and making a plan for the next stage, he threw what the tabloids called a “boozy barbecue” during a weekend of partying that also involved cricket and the Ninth Earl Spencer. (That’s Princess Diana’s brother, whose third wife is planning a renovation of their castle.) Johnson, and an extraordinary number of other Tories, seem to have devoted their energies to pounding out duelling columns for the Daily Telegraph rather than to something like a real blueprint for Leave. Johnson also alienated Leadsom by first promising her a spot in his putative government and to give her that commitment in writing, and then claiming accidentally to have left that particular piece of paper on his desk, bumbling-Boris style. She wasn’t charmed. Why was anybody, ever? At the same time, the personality questions distract from a larger problem that the Brexit results exposed: the distance between party leaders and voters.