Few Prime Ministers can have come to the House in more humiliating circumstances than Theresa May did today. In her statement, May acknowledged that she was pulling the vote as she would have lost it by a significant margin if it had gone ahead. But in that odd way of hers, May then delivered her best defence of her deal as she was saying that she would head back to Brussels to try and change it.
However, it is worth noting that May does not seem to be seeking a change to the withdrawal agreement itself. In response to a question from Iain Duncan Smith, she warned that reopening the withdrawal agreement would lead to more demands from other EU member states. She told Sir Oliver Heald, a supportive Tory backbencher, that she was seeking further clarification about the temporary nature of the backstop.
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