It is time for Labour and Tory MPs to wake up and see the Brexit reality staring them in the face.
Which is — after tonight’s demonstration that the government doesn’t have the votes to push through a Brexit plan of any description with simply its MPs and those of Northern Ireland’s DUP — all MPs face a simple choice.
Forget the idea floated by Olly Robbins in a Brussels bar of a 21-month Brexit delay – which was overheard by my ITV News colleague Angus Walker. I cannot find a single senior serious person in or around the EU who thinks it is going to happen.
Truthfully they regard it as an example of eccentric British humour.
Second, there is literally no possibility of the backstop being time-limited or altered to give the UK a unilateral right of exit.
After tonight’s voting debacle, no one in the EU thinks that she would secure a majority for her deal even if they were to give Theresa May everything she and the ERG Brexiters say they want and eviscerated the backstop.
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