The Prime Minister’s battle to the finish

As the Brexit negotiations near their conclusion, Theresa May’s position looks more difficult than ever. Having achieved some measure of calm in Brussels last week, she has returned to the opposite at home. In trying to tread a middle line on Brexit, the Prime Minister has often found herself at odds with parts of her own party. Yesterday, delivering a statement on the negotiations to the Commons, it appeared that she now had all pitted against her.

Mrs May declared the withdrawal agreement to be 95 per cent completed, with only the trickiest element, the backstop to protect an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, left unsettled. She then set out how an extension to the transition period would be only one of two options, were a trade deal with the EU not completed within the initial 21 months. The other would be keeping the whole of the UK in a customs union with Europe. Mrs May also expressed a desire for such measures to end well before the end of this parliament in 2022.

Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, this does not seem to have placated her MPS. Brexiteers still await an explicit time limit to the backstop; DUP MPS continue to fear that Northern Ireland will not only be trapped in the EU’S customs union, apart from the rest of Britain, but also that there will be a regulatory border in the Irish Sea. Scottish Tories worry about the Union and for the future of the fishermen in their constituencies if Britain extends its stay in the Common Fisheries Policy; Remainer MPS continue to push for a softer Brexit or a second referendum.

It cannot help that at every turn the Government gives the impression of being forced to give out information against its will, while continuing to demand trust in its declarations. Before the Prime Minister took to the Commons her Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, and John Glen, the Economic Secretary to Treasury, faced emergency questions. Mr Raab evaded attempts to guarantee adequate time for MPS to scrutinise the withdrawal agreement. Mr Glen batted away question after question on how much the potential extension to the transition period might cost the taxpayer.

The Government remains confident that it can conclude a deal with the EU, but if more concessions are to come it’s not at all clear how Mrs May can extricate herself from this parliamentary predicament.