The drama of the British departure from the European Union is finally coming to a climax. Theresa May has never been a compelling or even particularly convincing prime minister, but she seems to have managed the Homeric feat of getting some sort of agreement with Brussels, which her edgy and nervous cabinet has partially supported.

But the defection by Jacob Rees-Mogg, head of the European Study Group, which is a good deal less scholarly and more accomplished in the political martial arts than the name or its leader’s elegant demeanour would indicate, suggests a full leadership challenge to May is imminent.

I suspect that the unambiguous leavers will tank May, and would find Boris Johnson (former mayor of London and foreign secretary) and Mr. Rees-Mogg equally acceptable, and that the remainers in the governing party, the former followers of Prime Minister Cameron and his chancellor, George Osborne, would find Mr. Rees-Mogg more trustworthy and less abrasive than Mr. Johnson, and that Michael Gove, who had his falling out with Mr. Johnson after the Brexit vote, will swing it to Mr. Rees-Mogg.

The problem Mrs. May has had is that neither her followers nor Europe thought she was really serious about leaving. Mr. Cameron certainly was not, and assured everyone that Britain would never vote to leave. So, having promised “full-on treaty change,” he got a piffling and conditional concession on benefits to migrants from Brussels, less as I wrote at the time, than Neville Chamberlain brought back from Munich.

The country revolted and Messrs. Cameron and Osborne were out. With one British prime minister having gone to the wall, the Europeans had to treat the whole business more seriously, and did finally make some substantive concessions to Mrs. May. If Mr. Cameron had had these, he would have won his referendum.

As always happens in such contentious issues, though, the blood rises on both sides, and having voted narrowly to leave, the British are not now going to be satisfied with much beyond a common market with minimal political integration — the two-tier Europe I have always advocated, in Their Lordships’ House and when I was a London newspaper chairman.

In this sort of negotiation, the side threatening to break the association can only get the terms it needs to stay in the association if the other side is sure that they are not bluffing. If, as appears the likeliest outcome, Mrs. May cannot hold her party, an unambiguous leaver will take her place and will say what is acceptable to Britain, failing which, the U.K. leaves Europe on March 29 and will not pay one euro of departure penalty.

Au revoir, Auf wiedersehen, Arrivederci, and Vaya con Dios.

The basic problem with the European Union is that it attempts to put the whole continent, from Portugal to Poland and from Sweden to Greece, excepting only Norway and Switzerland, in a political straitjacket. The authorities in the so-called government of the European Union in Brussels answer neither to the toothless European Parliament in Strasbourg (the only legislature in the world since the last days of the Habsburg Empire that has more translators than lawmakers), nor to the major national governments of the Union (Germany, France, the U.K., Italy and Spain).

Every sane person in Europe and elsewhere who has an interest in Europe, strenuously admires the spirit of continental fraternity, reconciliation, and reciprocal cultural respect that now motivates all of the EU countries. A millennium and more of conflict along cultural lines, up to the horrible hecatombs of the World Wars that began in Europe and could be resolved only by the applied force of the United States, and in the Second World War the Soviet Union as well, has ended.

All the distinguished civilizations that fought in Europe, and often in their overseas adventures also, have settled into a celebration, well-earned, of what their civilizations have done for all mankind (humankind if we must).

But politically, the European Union is an infestation in the Brussels government of the EU of bearers of ancient Belgian and Dutch grievances against the great European powers for their condescension and at times outrages, and they now take too much pleasure in telling the Germans, British, French, and Italians what to do.

The Germans are accustomed to regimentation and as the greatest power in Europe, possess the national weight to alleviate the burden if necessary. The French and Italians are not accustomed to regarding government as anything but an irritant, often oppressive, almost always stupid, usually transitory, and not an institution that deserves any more adherence than one’s self-interest requires.

The British like to obey laws, but have never had meticulous official instruction on the minutiae of their lives and will not accept it now. Even King John did not try to exercise the authority of Brussels before signing the Magna Carta in 1215.

The British will not stand for this unceasing cascade of authoritarian directives from Brussels, purporting to decree everything from the number of newspapers in a delivery-person’s hand-off to a news agent, to how to stack vegetables in supermarkets, to a one-size-fits-all condom.

The entire European project stumbled at the point where it had either to remain a common market among sovereign countries, or merge altogether into one mighty confederation with one currency and central government but with devolved powers to regional or previously national governments, or the two-speed Europe described above. In failing to make that choice and straddling, it ceased to be democratic.

In Britain, prime ministers who resign while their parties are in power are almost always replaced by the chancellor of the exchequer, foreign secretary, or home secretary. Messrs. Cameron and Osborne had to go the day after the referendum, and the foreign secretary was Philip Hammond, an unknown and unprepossessing quantity (as he remains as chancellor).

As in the musical Evita, when the music stopped, it was only the home secretary, Mrs. May, who had a chair. She had been an almost silent leaver, but in the inner circle, she was the only presentable leaver there was, and assumed the premiership. Johnson declined to challenge her in exchange for the Foreign Office, and May started out to try to negotiate an exit from the EU.

She encountered the full-frontal arrogance of the EU, and did not have the Thatcherite or Churchillian, or even Macmillanesque authority to speak for Britain and require serious negotiating positions from the other side. There were many vicissitudes, including when she addressed her annual party conference and several of the large letters behind her, reminding viewers of the party’s name, fell down and she contracted a relentless, hacking cough.

Yet she created the conditions that would resolve British opinion: if Brussels told her to get lost, she would have massive backing to leave Europe, shouting unmentionable ethnic and other slurs behind her. If they substantially accepted, she had a deal that Britain, with much grumbling, could follow.

The departure of Britain altogether from the European Union, which the fading Chancellor Merkel and the stumbling President Macron should have gone to great lengths to prevent, would be as grievous a wound to Europe as would be the secession of Quebec to Canada or the secession of the southern states to the United States.

Britain can stand on her political institutions of 800 years and her noble standing in the world, and status as the world’s fifth national economy. President Trump would welcome a free trade arrangement with Britain, giving Britain access to a greater market, more reliable country, and with no loss of sovereignty.

The United Kingdom is a partner to be sought and not to be straight-armed, and especially not by an officious cabal of Euro-nonentities elevated by crawling through the cracks between the great powers to the headship of a well-meant but unaccountable and overbearing institution that has neither the legitimacy nor the merit to rule Europe.

Theresa May, too accident-prone even to be a good pair of hands, but plucky and tireless, did her best. She may not quite have got enough from Europe to hold her party behind her, but she has done all that she could — at the least, she has got Britain to the point where it can give Brussels an ultimatum and live with the response.

CBLetters@gmail.com. From the National Post.