At lunchtime yesterday Theresa May looked finished. Negotiations with Brussels had failed. It appeared that Britain’s last days in the European Union had turned into a fiasco, and the Prime Minister’s heroic three-year quest to deliver Brexit was doomed.
Around the time after-lunch coffee was being served, though, rumours started to circulate. A breakthrough!
Like a greyhound out of the traps, Mrs May was en route to the airport to catch a flight to Strasbourg.
'At lunchtime yesterday Theresa May (pictured) looked finished. Negotiations with Brussels had failed. It appeared that Britain’s last days in the European Union had turned into a fiasco, and the Prime Minister’s heroic three-year quest to deliver Brexit was doomed'
This last-minute dash meant only one thing. The Prime Minister smelt a deal in the offing. One that could help her muster enough support in the House of Commons.
But is she right?
Has Mrs May extracted enough from Brussels to satisfy the 118 Tory Brexiteers who voted down her deal in January – in the process inflicting the largest defeat on a sitting prime minister in living memory?
We won’t know the answer to that question till later today, but the problem is simple to explain. Mrs May cannot hope to get the support of Tory rebels if her withdrawal arrangement leaves Britain stuck forever in the Irish backstop – meaning that Northern Ireland must stay in the customs union, subject to European rules but with no decision making capacity.
Brexiteers say that such an arrangement turns Britain into a ‘vassal state’. Not in a million years will they vote for it.
However, if Mrs May has persuaded the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and chief negotiator Michel Barnier to provide an escape route from the backstop, then her deal has a chance of getting through the House of Commons.
Last night the Government and Brussels agreed a plan that could enable Attorney General Geoffrey Cox to alter his legal advice on the backstop.
The package includes a new legally-binding document that should allow the UK to seek an exit from the backstop if the EU tries to make it permanent, along with legal status for a separate package of assurances offered by Brussels
