May’s final mission

Theresa May will soon arrive in Brussels with a series of unlikely demands. She must tell the European Union that she wants to re-open a deal that she was hailing as not just the best, but the ‘only deal possible’ a few weeks ago. Parliament has now made her eat her words. It is a testament to her predicament that this counts as a triumph for her.

She has narrowly avoided a far worse fate. Had parliament voted another way — rejecting Graham Brady’s amendment and passing Yvette Cooper’s — she would have been sent into the negotiating chamber with nothing to say. She wouldn’t have been able to tell the EU what the Commons wanted. She wouldn’t have been able to ask for anything — and the EU would have known that she’d soon be sent back to Brussels by parliament to ask for an extension to Article 50.

At the start of this week, it seemed likely that parliament would further weaken May’s negotiating position.