The single most important fact in British politics, I say in the magazine this week, is that Theresa May does not currently have the votes to pass her Brexit plan even if she could get the European Union to accept it. ‘The numbers just don’t stack up’, one Cabinet Minister laments to me.
May’s problem is that there’ll be a sizeable Tory rebellion against the Chequers deal. One Cabinet Minister predicts that 60-odd Tories will vote against it and it is hard to see how May can get enough opposition MPs to back the deal to make up for it.
Compounding the situation for May is that both Tory Eurosceptic ultras and pro-European Labour MPs believe that they can get what they want by voting down her deal. Jacob Rees-Mogg and co think that if the deal is voted down, then Britain defaults to leaving the EU without a deal.
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