James Forsyth

Extraordinary scenes in the House of Commons today. Tory MPs believed that Jeremy Corbyn muttered ‘stupid woman’ in Theresa May’s direction as she mocked him over his failure to call a confidence vote. (Corbyn’s spokesman has subsequently said that Corbyn said ‘stupid people’). During the session, Paul Scully, a Tory vice-chairman, asked about the issue obliquely. But then at the end of the session, Patrick McLoughlin—the former chief whip—bellowed for a point of order. Bercow initially refused to take it as Corbyn left the chamber. But in the face of huge anger from the Tory benches, Bercow relented. Bercow’s initial response was that neither he nor the clerks had seen the incident, so he couldn’t be expected to rule on it.

A predictably lively Cabinet meeting today as ministers discussed no-deal planning. Jeremy Hunt said that EU attitudes were hardening because they could see a second referendum coming into view, in part, because of the speculation that people around the Cabinet table were indulging in it. The Foreign Secretary warned that a failure to deliver Brexit would be as devastating for the Tories as the Lib Dems’s failure on tuition fees was to them. Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, railed against the Treasury approvals process. He complained that because of it, the government had missed the boat and not booked as much ferry capacity as it wanted. Michael Gove complained about the inefficiency of the borders delivery group.

One might have expected today’s Commons statement to go rather badly for Theresa May. After all, she had gone to the European Council seeking legal and political assurances and come back with very little. Her anger was shown by the way she confronted Jean-Claude Juncker over his description of her as ‘nebulous’. But it actually turned out rather well for her. May’s decision to say that the meaningful vote will take place in the week of the 14th of January meant that Jeremy Corbyn’s threat – that he’d call a no confidence vote in her personally, if she wouldn’t name a date for the meaningful vote – lost whatever force it might have had. Without that, Corbyn’s response lacked impact and direction.

How does Theresa May break the Brexit logjam? Well, as I write in the Sun this morning, there are three ways to do this being discussed by Cabinet Ministers—the situation is now such that ministers don’t feel there’s anything disloyal about discussing contingency plans. The first option would see the government back an amendment to May’s deal when it comes to the Commons for a vote in January. The government would accept an amendment that added a sunset clause to the backstop, this would mean that it would expire after a defined period of time unless parliament voted to keep it going. With that change, May’s deal would have a fighting chance of passing the Commons. Some in government think that this might just be enough to win over the DUP.

Who should govern Britain? This has always been the most contentious question in British politics. Magna Carta, the Reformation, the Civil War, the Glorious Revolution and the Reform Acts were all struggles over this fundamental point. Brexit asks this question twice over, so we should not be surprised by how divisive an issue it has become. It is about the extent to which the writ of the European Union should run in the United Kingdom — but also about the relationship between the people and parliament. By an overwhelming majority, MPs legislated to let the public decide. But ever since the voters returned the opposite answer to what the Commons was expecting, MPs have struggled to come to terms with the result.

Theresa May has survived the vote, but her authority is weakened still further. More than a third of Tory MPs have voted against her and this is after she pledged not to fight the next election and to get legally enforceable changes to the backstop. If May had kept the number of those voting against her below 100, it would have been a good result for her. If she had kept it to below 80, it would have strengthened her position considerably. But anything over 105 was always going to be tricky for her as that meant a 1/3rd of her MPs didn’t have confidence in her. This became truer as the day went on and May offered concessions to try and win over wavering MPs.

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.

Key Cabinet Ministers are urging Theresa May to avoid a vote on her Brexit deal on Tuesday night. I report in The Sun this morning that they fear that if it goes ahead, the government will lose by a margin so large that it could bring the whole thing crashing down. One Secretary of State tells me that it would be ‘group suicide’ to press ahead with the vote. Number 10 say that no decision on whether to find a way to avoid the vote has been taken yet; senior figures there say that decision will not be taken until Monday. But they do admit that they are making little headway in trying to quell this rebellion. One Cabinet Minister tells me that they are heading for a three-figure defeat.

Unless Theresa May delays the vote, 11 December 2018 might be about to become one of the most important in recent British history; more important even than 23 June 2016. If MPs vote down Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, as nearly all ministers expect them to, they will set Britain on course for either the softest possible Brexit or a second referendum. In the process, they may well split the Tory party. Theresa May’s strategy has been to play chicken with Parliament. Her team saw virtue in intransigence and calculated that at the last moment MPs would get out of her way. They thought that fear of no deal would bring former Remainers into the fold. Simultaneously, Leavers would reluctantly take this imperfect Brexit over the risk of no Brexit at all.

No-go-day was meant to be yesterday, I say in The Sun. This was the moment when the Department for Exiting the EU wanted the principal purpose of government to become getting the country ready for leaving the EU regardless of whether there was a deal or not. Number 10 argued that a vaguer deadline of late November / early December was better. They thought that this would give more time to tell whether full on ‘no deal’ prep was necessary or not. But now, Number 10 is indicating that it wants to hold off until after the meaningful vote on the 11th of December. This is not a good idea, though. Those inside the machine estimate that it would take four months of intense preparations to get this country into a place where it could make no deal manageable.

There are few things in the Brexit debate that are not disputed. But there is one thing that pretty much everyone accepts: that Theresa May believes in her deal. She really does think it is the right answer to the referendum result. However, as I say in the magazine this week, her deal is unlikely to get through the Commons. But what can May do given that she wants her deal to pass? Well, there is one route that might work for her: a second referendum. If the Commons won’t back her deal, then maybe the country will. This would require a massive volte-face from May, and her exasperated reaction when asked about a so-called ‘People’s Vote’ shows she isn’t currently entertaining the idea.

If Theresa May needed any reminder of what a mountain she has to climb to get her Brexit deal through, she got it in the House of Commons this afternoon. Any hope that getting the deal agreed with the EU 27 might give her momentum was dashed as MP after MP stood up to criticise the agreement. Not one MP supported it in the first hour of the session. In part, the wall of hostility came from the Speaker calling those known to be hostile to the deal. But what should most worry May was how critical Michael Fallon, the former defence secretary, was of her deal. If party loyalists, men of government types such as Fallon are having doubts about whether to support it, then it is very hard to see how any Tory rebellion can be kept down to a manageable level.

There was no great last-minute drama. The European Council signed off the Brexit deal in brisk fashion this morning, with leaders stressing that this is the best deal that they are going to offer the UK. But, of course, this doesn’t mean that everything is done and dusted. For now, Theresa May has to get this deal through parliament. This morning there have been two reminders of how difficult this will be. First, Iain Duncan Smith confirmed that he will be voting against the withdrawal agreement. This is a blow as if IDS is voting against it, then the ERG rebellion is going to be north of 20—making it very hard to see a way through for this deal.

The most contentious part of Theresa May’s Brexit deal are the Northern Ireland specific provisions of the backstop. These would see various EU rules and regulations apply in Northern Ireland even after the UK has left the EU. If they came into force, they would create—in some areas—a kind of regulatory border in the Irish Sea. But, as I say in The Sun this morning, these provisions might be illegal under European Human Rights law. A case in 1999 brought against the UK government, the Matthews case, at the European Court of Human Rights established that people have a right to vote in elections to the parliaments that set their laws.