Robert Peston Robert Peston

Will Theresa May’s Brexit deal end up in the dustbin?

Because Theresa May’s Brexit deal has been so long in the coming – almost two and a half years – and has been so comprehensively trailed and leaked, yesterday’s formal ratification of the terms of our departure from the EU and the shape of our possible future relationship with the EU feels like the mother of all anti-climaxes. But cynicism and lethargy are to be resisted: that ratification really matters. Because because – at last we have THE DEAL.

Until yesterday, everything about Brexit was presumption, speculation, rumour and hypothesis. Finally we know what Brexit means to a Prime Minister who had no other job but to find out what it means. Her deal has a decent number of known knowns: the €42bn divorce bill, that EU migrants living here and British migrants living in the EU can stay where they are without detriment, that free movement to the UK from the rest of the EU will end, inter alia.

It also has a significant number of transparent known unknowns: that the border on the mainland of Ireland could be kept open by the imposition of different rules in Northern Ireland from those applying in Great Britain, that the UK could remain a non-voting member of the EU for a few years yet, that the permanent new terms of access for UK businesses to the EU’s single market are yet to be settled and will be connected to quite how much the UK is prepared to be bossed by the EU.

The big point is that although the prime minister insists – and will continue to insist – that her deal makes real the promises of Brexiters that Britain will take back control of its borders, money and laws, in practice only when it comes to borders and immigration does her agreement concretise those aspirations in a way not open to dispute and even ridicule.

Which means that MPs will have to compare apples with pears – sovereignty arguments with economic ones with social and cultural ones – when deciding in the next two and half weeks whether Theresa May’s Brexit should live or die.

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