I think most observers believe the PM's strategy has always been to run down the Brexit clock and at the last possible moment offer the House of Commons a choice of approving her deal or crashing out without one. She hopes that this will focus minds and force MPs to support her, even if they hate the deal. It will be take it or risk either no deal or no Brexit with neither side knowing which way she will jump and fearing they will end up with their worst nightmare.
This might work but the risks are enormous. And for a policy which will shape our future relationship with our biggest trading partner and closest neighbours for years, it seems an odd way to get it accepted.
Brexit was supposed to be some sort of glorious national voyage of renewal. Instead it is like setting off in a leaky old ship and with a sullen and mutinous crew, divided into two rancorous factions, most of whom were pressed into service at knifepoint. It hardly bodes well does it?
And there is no guarantee it would work. Some Brexiteers are crazy enough to think leaving without a deal is only mildly inconvenient. This could easily tip us over the cliff edge.
If she relies on Labour votes to get it through, the Conservative party could split. Robert Peston (HERE) thinks Corbyn is moving towards supporting the deal without a second referendum. If so, we will be in a position which is almost unique in my lifetime. The deal is anathema to both sides for opposite reasons and both main party leaders will be at odds with a majority of their own membership and their own MPs. Perhaps both parties will split, who knows?
If she does succeed, by whatever means, and the deal is as unpopular as it seems in the country it will be equivalent to a second poll tax but far more difficult to put right.
To be a national leader you have to be an egomaniac, that's a given. The cabinet is packed with men and women who all think they're far better leaders than the prime minister (although they're all easily the worst we've ever had). You couldn't become an MP unless you thought you were a superior being, but they all disguise vaulting ambition beneath a graphene thin veneer of loyalty. And of course you need to seriously hate your colleagues and treat the opposition as if they were Genghis Khan with leprosy.
Theresa and Phillip May are tribally Conservative. The well-being of the nation is an afterthought for them.
But even for an egomaniac, the prime minister is certainly a very conceited person. She thinks she alone can decide what Brexit means and force through a deal that will impact everyone in the country but which has only minority support in parliament and the population. I am not sure many people are so certain about anything but May doesn't do self doubt does she?
She seems to feel no embarrassment whatsoever at spending eighteen months negotiating a deal without first finding out what MPs would or could support. This is where your ego comes in. You have done nothing wrong because it is quite impossible for you to do anything wrong.
Trust in the prime minister has all but gone in Europe as the BBC report HERE and The Guardian HERE. By voting against her own deal's backstop section, which took months and months of difficult negotiations and which she supported resolutely until Tuesday, has destroyed what little credibility she had.
By indulging in a lot of can-kicking since coming to power, she has consistently avoided facing up to the huge problems surrounding Brexit and kept them hidden or denied there were any. In the next few weeks the full horror of it all will need to be confronted and explained to a population largely ignorant of what Brexit really means. There is going to be quite a shock when the big reveal takes place.
Sky News put it succinctly (HERE):
"She gets in trouble, she promises a change to buy time, she cannot deliver it, so then she promises something bigger to buy yet more time. But, each time, she backs herself into a tighter and tighter corner, trapped in the quicksand of her own vows.
"It is this strategy, after all, which lumbered the prime minister with the backstop in the first place.
"But there's nothing left in the armoury now, no bigger promise Mrs May could make and precious little sand left in the hourglass. So in the end Brexit will come down to a stand-off. Will Labour MPs, terrified of no deal, break away in sufficient numbers to back Mrs May's plan? Or can Labour lure enough soft Brexiteer Tory MPs with their own ideas, something potentially even resembling the 'Norway model'?"
"It is this strategy, after all, which lumbered the prime minister with the backstop in the first place.
"But there's nothing left in the armoury now, no bigger promise Mrs May could make and precious little sand left in the hourglass. So in the end Brexit will come down to a stand-off. Will Labour MPs, terrified of no deal, break away in sufficient numbers to back Mrs May's plan? Or can Labour lure enough soft Brexiteer Tory MPs with their own ideas, something potentially even resembling the 'Norway model'?"
The EU commission is demanding, as they were always going to, that we will have to pay the £39 billion divorce bill whether we leave with a deal or not, according to The Telegraph (HERE). This is not calculated to calm things down.
I sometimes think the nation has been reduced to Thornfield Hall and the world has finally caught up with the fact we have had 17 million mentally disturbed people, like Edward Rochester's wife, living in the loft that we have tried to keep secret for years and years. Now it is all out in the open. And the world is standing watching - and sniggering behind our backs.
