It’s highly unlikely that May’s deal will pass on the third vote

Everyone is getting over-excited. Calm down.

The idea that Theresa May will seize victory from the jaws of humiliation with her constitutionally dubious decision to put her Brexit deal to a vote for a record-breaking third time next week is highly questionable.

First even if the Attorney General admits with the full magisterial regret for which he is notorious that he stupidly excused from his initial interpretation of the palimpsested backstop that – after all – there is a unilateral escape route from the backstop via the Vienna Convention, this would be just one hired lawyer’s opinion, and an oddly convenient one at that.

It won’t change all Brexiters’ minds.

And as Steve Baker, their remorselessly rational leader said on my show last night, he won’t be bullied or bribed by the PM to change his mind and back her deal, even faced with the threat from her that Brexit could be delayed till long after we’re all dead.

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So if Northern Ireland’s DUP MPs are seduced by Cox’s Viennese Waltz with Jacob Rees-Mogg (who right at the end of Tuesday night’s Brexit debate prompted Steve Barclay to ‘find’ Cox’s lost words on the benign impact of the Vienna Convention), some 20 odd Tory Brexiteers probably won’t be.