Beyond May

On Tuesday, MPs will face something rare: a Commons motion which really does deserve to be described as momentous. It will set Britain’s place in Europe and in the world for years to come. The vote will place an especially heavy burden on Conservative MPs, for they have the power to inflict a hefty defeat on their own government, an administration which has no majority and which governs thanks only to a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP. It is all too easy to see where defeat on Tuesday could lead: to the collapse of the government, a general election and the arrival of Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.

Theresa May’s deal has been rejected by MPs on the left and the right, by radicals and moderates. It promises to leave us in a Brexit purgatory, neither in nor out, obliged to accept EU regulations and rules on trade without having any say in the making of those rules. MPs might accept a temporary transition if a free-trade deal was guaranteed to follow. But the reason that her government was the first ever to be found in contempt of Parliament was its refusal to release legal advice that shows there are no guarantees, and no guaranteed exit from a backstop that is described as temporary.

So far, more than a hundred Conservative MPs have said they will vote against the deal. This number will almost certainly shrink by the time of the vote, but all opposition parties say they will oppose the deal — bookmakers are offering odds of four-to-one on the bill passing. Afterwards there will be huge pressure on her to resign, possibly as a price for the DUP agreeing not to bring down the government.