Theresa May is now putting Brexit at risk

Theresa May says the choice facing the nation is between her deal and no Brexit, but increasingly it looks to be between Brexit and Mrs May. We lurch from one delay to another. Britain was hoping to leave on March 29, then April 12. The Prime Minister went to Europe this week to seek a deferral until June 30 but the EU27 gave her until October 31 instead – not an act of generosity but proof that they don’t believe Mrs May can win Parliament’s support for the Withdrawal Agreement.

What is Britain expected to do with these extra months? The agreement cannot be renegotiated, so that presumably rules out fresh support from the backbenches or the DUP. If Labour and the Government do strike a deal on a customs union, which is no kind of Brexit at all, it will split the Tories in two (if the party isn’t already in tatters following the European and local elections). Mrs May’s leadership is defined by bloody-mindedness: she sits tight and waits for others to change their mind. The strategy has backfired catastrophically and the longer MPS are without decisive, imaginative leadership, the more they descend into self-important provocation. What was the point of the Cooper-letwin bill, rammed through over all constitutional objections, for the sake of a delay that Mrs May intended to seek anyway and the EU was always going to give?

It sends a signal to Brussels: Parliament is in control. Give it time and Remainers will finally have a majority and they will revoke Article 50. This is why Mrs May’s leadership – far from a marvellous display of public duty, far from being the only option – threatens Brexit itself. She has no workable plan for getting Britain out of the EU. Every justification for keeping her in office is weak. If the Cabinet is avoiding a leadership change out of fear of Jeremy Corbyn, it needs to know that he is already ahead in some polls and that if the Tories are frightened of a Seventies throwback then they are in a very bad state indeed.

The EU’S time extension perpetuates an unstable status quo, which is doing real world damage: the economy might be strong but business needs certainty and investment has stalled. Mrs May said that she would quit once the agreement passed but it won’t pass, so she stays – and she refuses to countenance an alternative to the agreement. This has to end. The longer Mrs May clings on, the more likely it is to result in Brexit being cancelled.