Seven prime ministers in a decade, as the UK is about to witness, is quite a testimony to political instability. Britain is wrestling with itself and consequently, short-lived governments.

Since World War II, Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson (for six years with a snap election in between), Margaret Thatcher (for 11 years), John Major (for seven years with an election in the middle), Tony Blair (for a decade before he voluntarily stepped down) and David Cameron have completed five years or more as prime minister.

After being re-elected in 2015, Cameron proceeded with an election manifesto promise of a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. This had been a very fractious issue in his Conservative party since the 1980s. A pro-Europe politician among sceptics, he was sanguine his popularity would put the matter at rest once and for all. But he was in for a shock.

The vote not only divided his party and government but the country as a whole. Cameron had underestimated the challenge posed by party colleague Boris Johnson and the ultra-nationalist brigade that join forces with him. He did not take into account the fact that the leader of the opposition Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, belonged to the 1970s era of left-wingers opposed to the European Common Market, as the EU was then known. Corbyn officially supported the ‘Remain’ campaign but half-heartedly at best. The verdict:........

© National Herald