It would be easy to be cynical about Theresa May's surprise decision to trigger a general election for the UK on June 8. It would also be correct. Opinion polls show the Tories with a big lead over the opposition, and Jeremy Corbyn is widely regarded as the least electable Labour Party leader ever.
May's explanation for the election call, which she has always vowed not to do, is bizarre. She claims that the country is uniting behind Brexit (really??) but Parliament is not, despite the fact that Corbyn has basically accepted the "will of the people" as expressed in last June's referendum. A more plausible explanation, and a much more ominous one for the UK, is offered by Anthony Barnett here. Barnett contends that May and her Brexit minsters are coming to realise that the UK will not cleanly exit the EU in March 2019; rather there will be a transitional period that may well be punishing for the UK. This would make things difficult for the Tories at the supposedly fixed election date in 2020. Better to run now, before the formal negotiations ramp up.
It's nigh impossible to see May and her Tories losing in June, but it's even harder to see how the election will strengthen the UK's hand at the negotiating table. The Tories will very likely be shut out in Scotland altogether; Plaid Cymru and Labour between them will win almost every seat in Wales; and nationalists and pro-EU moderates will likely increase their representation in Northern Ireland.
The Tories will then stand revealed as what they have increasingly become in recent years, an English nationalist party. Setting the stage for a messy breakup of the United Kingdom hardly seems the best way to prepare for the Brexit negotiations.
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