As is often the case, the foreign secretary tonight summed up the PM’s worst nightmare, when tweeting that surely everyone can agree that Jacob Rees-Mogg is a principled MP who only “wants the best for our country”.
Note well that he didn’t say his fellow Brexit purist only wants the best for his party.
And there lies why May has struggled to even describe a detailed policy for the UK’s future relationship with the EU, let alone secure agreement for it.
The point is she fears – correctly – that when it comes to what Brexit represents, for a Mogg, a Cash, a Bone, there are versions of it regarded by the True Brexiters as so toxic to the national interest they would rather see this minority government fall than collaborate with it.
So in that sense it may well be largely irrelevant that the centre of gravity in parliament since May’s ill-starred election of 2017 has been for a softer Brexit which would see a Brexited Britain opting-in to many of the EU’s institutional arrangements, in the cause of minimising possible shocks to our trade and security.
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