Theresa May warns Brexit solution will require compromise – POLITICO

LONDON — Delivering Brexit has to "mean some kind of compromise" outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May warned Wednesday.

In the last major speech of her premiership at the Chatham House think tank in London May said she had "no greater regret" than her inability to deliver Brexit.

Her compromise warning came after both of the leadership candidates in the race to replace her, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, hardened their positions on Brexit in a debate Monday night. Both declared the Northern Irish backstop "dead" and rejected the idea of giving it a five-year time limit.

May said most people across the country "had a preference for getting [Brexit] done with a deal" as she reiterated her belief the deal she negotiated with the EU, which was rejected by the U.K. parliament, did deliver on the EU referendum vote.

"The problem was that when it came time for Parliament to ratify the deal, our politics retreated back into its binary pre-referendum positions – a winner takes all approach to leaving or remaining."

May also spoke of her serious concerns both domestically and internationally about the "substance" and "tone" of politics — although refused to be drawn on specific individuals.

"Today an inability to combine principles with pragmatism and make a compromise when required seems to have driven our whole political discourse down the wrong path. It has led to what is in effect a form of 'absolutism' – one which believes that if you simply assert your view loud enough and long enough you will get your way in the end.  Or that mobilising your own faction is more important than bringing others with you," she said.

May also decried the coarsening of the political discourse in the U.K. and internationally, although she refused to be drawn on who she was referring to. "This descent of our debate into rancour and tribal bitterness – and in some cases even vile abuse at a criminal level - is corrosive for the democratic values which we should all be seeking to uphold ... Words have consequences - and ill words that go unchallenged are the first step on a continuum towards ill deeds," she said.

Questioned on her own choice of language, including a reference to "citizens of nowhere" in a party conference speech, and her desire to deliver a "red, white and blue Brexit," May admitted that her language had not always been "perfect."

Source: Politico.eu

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