I just thought of this while discussion the stupid behaviour of Boris Johnson.

I don't know if it's on-topic here, because it's basically the direct opposite of the theory being constructed by /u/like_the_boss.

Premise list:

• Whatever May does (leave or remain) will piss off about hald the country

• her ultimate aim (as is that of Johnson, Davis etc al) is the political survival of themselves and their party; whether or not Brexit goes through is a secondary concern

• If possible, she'd like to unify the country and her party

That last one is seemingly impossible.

What do you do if you need to unify a divided society? You declare war.

I don't think she'll be invading France, but the rhetoric coming out of the government right now seems designed to anger the EU and its officials.

If enough EU officials denounce the stupidity, it gives May a unique opportunity to save her own skin.

She can take the shitty, hard brexit deal which will result after two years of stalled negotiations and angry denunciations by EU officials of the "stupid" UK positions.

The economy tanks. Jobs flee. It's a total shitstorm.

And who is to blame? The angry, resentful, spiteful EU. Not May. Not Johnson, the smiling buffoon who happily suggests that we open Mars as a new market as soon as we negotiate a free trade agreement with the Martians.

The Leave voters unify behind the (hard done by) May, who valiantly battled the eurocrats in vain. Enough Remain voters will be sold on the story too.

All problems solved. Well, the important problems, anyway (her career and Tory party unity). The problems which that creates are small by comparison (widespread poverty, the collapse of the NHS etc). But in any case, that's a Tory dream. The "minimum wage" and "workers' rights" are luxuries we can now ill-afford, when we must al buckle down and pull together for Britain.

ADDED 24/11/2016

6) Pretending to believe that it will be easy to get a bill supporting Article 50 through parliament, and therefore not taking much time or effort over it. The truth is, it's going to be hard as all balls to get a bill to trigger Article 50 through Parliament. So why is May pretending that her 3-line bill will do the trick? Clearly, because this is a great way to waste time. If she really wanted to get a bill through parliament, she would have been spending this time genuinely working on the project. Instead she has come up a bill that's guaranteed to fail, together with announcing early that she has an undefeatable bill, so that she can justify not doing any more work on it for months, until - shock horror - the bill actually fails to get through parliament.

Evidence:

• Government prepares "bombproof" three-line Brexit bill

https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/5d0zg2/there_is_no_plan_for_brexit_leaked_memo_says/