Karaoke PM’s hit after All Night Long

DAVID Davis spent 249 days in fruitless talks. But Theresa May got the EU to blink first in one night of phone diplomacy, with karaoke rumbling overhead.

As Brexit Countdown revealed last week, the PM believes the status of the Irish border can be resolved only alongside trade negotiations.

On Thursday night, while No10 staff held their Christmas party in the room above, the PM persuaded EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker that was the way forward.

It enabled her to pile into her bomb-proof Jag at 3.45am on Friday to head to RAF Northolt and the flight which would clinch the deal. It was a far cry from Monday when Mrs May returned from Brussels with her tail between her legs after the DUP scuppered an agreement.

Mrs May faced ruin. There was talk she would be gone by Christmas and Brexit Secretary Davis, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove all smelled blood.

The EU did not make it any easier by insisting the border question be settled in Phase One of talks, along with the £39billion divorce settlement and EU citizens’ residency rights, before moving to Phase Two.

In a leaked document seen by Countdown, Mrs May told her MPs: “The best way to avoid a hard border for Northern Ireland and Ireland is to negotiate the right trading relationship between the UK and the EU.”

For Ireland, keeping the border open is essential. Not only for 14,500 workers who cross it each day but for businesses operating on both sides.

A quarter of Northern Ireland’s milk is processed in the south and both countries share energy supplies.

But this victory is not the beginning of the end, it is just the end of the beginning.

If David Davis thought Phase One was bad, Phase Two promises to be ten times worse.