Sky Views: Will Theresa May be remembered as one of UK's worst prime ministers?

Sky Views: Will Theresa May be remembered as one of UK's worst prime ministers?

Beth Rigby, political editor

Theresa May is still in No 10 but this week even she seemed to acknowledge this is borrowed time, as the prime minister began to author an alternative legacy to the rather damning political obituary her party and the wider political class might well decide to write.

Releasing a new support scheme for survivors of domestic abuse, Mrs May delivered a concrete policy change for those she had once made it her mission to help before Brexit took all her bandwidth.

"I've always vowed to leave no stone unturned in tackling domestic violence - this abhorrent crime has no place in our society," she said of her decision to impose a legal duty on local authorities to support and house survivors of domestic abuse.

"They've got about four weeks left. This is part of her legacy planning," observed one MP wryly this week as the press release dropped.


Image: A Conservative backbencher has said Theresa May is seizing 'the mantle of the worst prime minister' from John Major

This was a prime minister who began in office nearly three years ago with two missions - to tackle the "burning injustices" that blight our society and to deliver Brexit. Worthy goals, but the past two years have been characterised as a battle for May's survival rather than a stage for social change.

The prime minister that promised voters she'd be the handmaiden of Brexit looks set to end her premiership in failure on all fronts.

Brexit betrayal is the mantra - it's little wonder that voters are getting ready to deliver the Conservative party a giant bloody nose in the European elections next week and potentially give Mrs May the added indignity of presiding over the Conservatives worst-ever performance in a national poll.

One humiliation piled upon another, her enemies - and even some neutral MPs - are preparing to write her off as perhaps one of Britain's most unsuccessful prime ministers.

Image: David Cameron came third in a list of worst British prime ministers

"There is only one person who wants her to go on, and that's John Major," remarked one of her backbench detractors.

"Every passing day she remains as prime minister she is seizing from John Major the mantle of the worst prime minister in living memory."

Actually, it is not Sir John whom academics have crowned with that dishonour but the architect of the Suez crisis Sir Anthony Eden.

A poll of academics specialising in British politics and contemporary British history rated Sir Anthony as the worst-performing of all post-war prime ministers.

Image: Sir Anthony Eden was prime minister during the Suez Crisis, which seen as a national humiliation for the UK

David Cameron came in third from the bottom - just above Sir Alec Douglas-Home - for his great referendum failure, with one academic claiming it was the greatest defeat of any prime minister "since Lord North lost America".

But Mrs May's Brexit crisis is now up there as the most serious domestic crisis Britain has faced in the modern democratic era.

Her impending defeat on Brexit (for the fourth time) is now spoken of in the same breath as Lord North's defeat in the American War of Independence and Sir Anthony's humiliation over the Suez crisis.

"Who is the worst prime minister? It's either her or Lord North who lost the colonies. But actually she is the worst because she lost her own country." This the reflection of a spartan Brexiteer.

Image: Lord North was prime minister during the American War of Independence

She will be cast as the villain of this mess. It was Mrs May who insisted on trying to push through a deal her party could not accept. She was intransigent and unpersuasive; she was a poor negotiator; she never really believed in Brexit; she left the cross-party talks far too late; hers was a Brexit in name only; she should have never pandered to the Brexiteers or carved her red lines into stone; she was too partisan and tribal.

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But perhaps over time she might be remembered more sympathetically. She never had the numbers to pass a Brexit deal through parliament, either before her snap election or after it. David Cameron not only left her with a country reeling from a divisive referendum, but also left her with a majority of just 12 MPs in 2016.

Nearly three times that number refused to support her in the third vote on her deal in March. If Brexit was a riddle, the obduracy of some of her own MPs made it an impossible conundrum for her to resolve.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Hannah Thomas-Peter - In the US climate change is a value, not a fact