Portrait of the week | 14 February 2019

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Theresa May, the Prime Minister, returned from a trip to Brussels and Dublin and hurried to the Commons to ask for more time to do something or other about the Irish backstop. The much-kicked Brexit can was expected to land in the parliamentary road again on 27 February, though the government envisaged no ‘meaningful vote’ until March. Oliver Robbins, Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator, was overheard in a bar saying that the choice might be between Mrs May’s deal or a delay to Brexit, to which the EU would agree. Brexit had taken an eschatological turn after Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, said at a press conference: ‘By the way, I have been wondering what the special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.’ Labour advocated a customs union for the whole of the United Kingdom.