Theresa May and her own kind of leadership

Rumi Akter writes for DOT : 
Since 2016 to till, Brexit issue has been on the verge of discussion in the international system. On 23 June 2016, the first referendum was held to decide whether Britain would be in or out of the European Union (EU). However, 51.9% voted in favour of leaving the EU while 48.1& voted against the Brexit. With the ending of the referendum, the then British Prime Minister David Cameron resigned from his position immediately. With the resignation of David Cameron, Theresa May was appointed as the new Prime Minister who emphasised on the unity within the Conservative Party regardless of positions on leaving the EU.
After being appointed as the Prime Minister, Mayplanned the Brexit deal which has been defeated by the lawmakerson this Tuesday with a humiliating margin of vote of 202 to 432. Soon after the crushing defeat in the Parliament, proposed by the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, Theresa May, however,fended off the no confidence vote with 325 to 306.
Thus, Theresa May’s government survived again. Nonetheless, it is quite beyond everyone’s understating that after such a shameful defeat in the Parliament regarding the Brexit deal, how did the government of Thersa May win the no confidence vote  with such a majority? Here are some reasons which can at least make some sense.
It is obvious that May does not have support from her own party on her Brexit deal, and she’s already faced an internal party revolt during the last December. May’s own Conservative party tried to oust her in a (failed) no-confidence vote in December 2018.Apart fromthis, more than 100 Tories (MPs of Conservative Party) voted against her deal on Tuesday. With having all these fractions within the party, still the Conservative Party showed loyalty to their government forgetting the internal splits. Thus, it can be said that Theresa May is successful at least in unifying the partyon the issue of the party’s interest as a whole.
Another point is that the Conservative Party does not want to trigger the chance for having a general election which may lead the Labour Party to come into power.
Another interesting point can be figured out from previous records that, during the referendum in 2016, the Conservative Party was in favour of Brexit while the Labour Party was against the Brexit. Theresa May was also against Brexit before the EU referendum. However, after the referendum. She said,“Brexit means Brexit”. On the other hand, the Labour Party campaigned against Brexit in the referendum. However, the Labour Party also said after the referendum that the result voted by the people must be honoured. Hence, it can be assumed that regardless their own political view, both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party respected the verdict of the people. However,the Conservative Party wants to implement the verdict of the people remaining in the government while the Labour Party wants tocome into power throwing the ruling party and implement the mandate of the people regarding the Brexit.
Finally, Theresa May famously promised “strong and stable leadership” during the 2017 general election campaign. Apart from her being the second femalePrime Minister of Britain, May also served the Home Secretary for more than six years. The Home Office is a large complex department bringing together more than 25,000 full-time employees includingpoliticians, temporary workers, contractors, consultants, and so forth. May was appreciated for her being a very competent administrator, May presents herself as task-oriented and transactional. Theories of leadership suggest that people pay less attention to the leaders who are task-oriented and transactional. According to the Sociologist Max Weber, holding great office is another kind of charisma. Such charismatics need not be great show people but can rely more on being competent and legitimate administrators. Thus, it can be assumed that the Charismatic leadership of Theresa May came with being competent and legitimate administrator and thus, this might helped her to survive her government during the no confidence vote to some extent. The writer is a research assistant (International Affairs), Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA).