After all the shenanigans last week when the entire top echelon of DEXEU threatened to resign, the Sunday newspapers are full of comment about Mrs May's leadership, mainly about how poor it is and how long it can go on. Brexiteers have cottoned on to the fact that most of the negotiating time has been wasted with really nothing being achieved, although David Davis has a piece in The Sunday Times (copy - HERE) saying the negotiations are "bearing fruit" and the basis for our "future prosperity and security for decades to come is arriving into view".
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at this from a man who never takes off his rose tinted spectacles for Brexit.
In much of the newspaper coverage, Brexiteers take BoJo's line of argument and suggest Theresa May isn't being tough enough. She needs to be more like Donald Trump they say amid speculation she could be replaced as soon as July. For them this is the big issue. We have all the cards but May is playing them badly.
However, they are labouring under some fundamental misapprehensions. Even if she was replaced by Jacob Rees-Mogg or BoJo or Gove, the problems wouldn't change. We would still be the smaller partner in the talks with zero planning or readiness to leave without a deal. Any new prime minister would be in precisely the same position. We have no cards at all.
Faced with a barrage of internal experts and economists from The Treasury, the wider civil service plus businesses across the country telling them the prospect of leaving without a deal would be cataclysmic and lead to Dover becoming clogged from day one with food shortages after a few days, what is the new PM to say? Are they to proclaim: I don't believe any of it and I'll just do what I think? History would be scathing and the people would never forgive him or her or the party. It would be gambling the PM's feelings against all the stacked expertise we have. No prime minister would be able to do it.
It might just have been possible if May, in July 2016, had warned the nation Brexit would lead to a lot of hardship and many sacrifices would have to be made. If she had made a Churchillian speech about blood, sweat, toil and tears she might have got away with it. But the Brexiteers would never have allowed such a speech to be made. They convinced themselves it could all be done quite easily, in less than two years without cost or pain. It would have been labelled project fear MK2.
No, it was this inability to be straight with people from the beginning that has led us to where we are now. And no change of prime minister is going to alter it.
Parliament will debate amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill tomorrow and Wednesday and I don't expect the government will lose many votes - if any. What it will show is the depth of division in both parties and if nothing else, it might lead people to question if Brexit is worth all the acrimony and trouble which will undoubtedly go on for years.
