What promise will Theresa May choose to break next?

Pulling the Withdrawal Agreement vote is just the latest betrayal of her colleagues, writes Brian Monteith

When I wrote my column last week, the Brexit Secretary, Stephen Barclay, had been assuring anyone who would listen the vote on the Withdrawal Agreement was going ahead, denying reports in some Sunday papers revealing it might be pulled. Then on Monday morning Michael Gove was reassuring the BBC the vote would indeed happen on the Tuesday evening as planned. The government of Theresa May, after two years of breaking her own red lines, looked destined to keep a promise for once.

Downing Street called a media briefing and at 11:15am was saying the vote was going ahead and May was confident of winning. By 11:28am Bloomberg and Cityam were saying the vote was being pulled but it was denied by Downing Street. Amidst this the pound started to fall to its lowest level against the US dollar in 18 months. A statement by May was scheduled suddenly for 3:30pm where, after some 140 MPS debating over three days and with two still to go, she announced the “meaningful vote” would not happen that day.

If ever there was a single event in the last two years of EU negotiations that rolled up into one episode the utter confusion, doublespeak, cowardice, rank amateurism and repeated betrayal of her most loyal colleagues by May this was it. It was this, far, far more than any Brexiteer conspiracy, selfish personal ambition or Machiavellian plotting that led to over 48 letters being submitted that would trigger a vote of confidence in the Tory leader.

That Theresa May survived the test was down to her stating three things; she would not lead her party into the next general election; she would go to Brussels and bring back legally-tight assurances the Withdrawal Agreement’s backstop would be time limited; and that relations with the DUP had been repaired. No sooner had these assurances been leaked than they were being dismantled as DUP leader Arlene Foster corrected any idea the DUP had softened its objections to May’s sell-out of Northern Ireland by treating it as a “third country”.

The next day the European Council not only rejected any possibility of reopening negotiations on even one dot or comma of the Withdrawal Agreement but also went on to delete the mildest of comforting sentences from the draft final communiqué, as Ireland demanded no quarter be given in May’s most beggarly humiliation yet. Of the three promises that helped her cling to power only the pledge not to lead her party in a future general election remains to be broken – and even doubts about that commitment are surfacing.

The 117 votes against May remaining as Conservative leader represents two-thirds of her backbenchers wishing her to go – and go now. There is no solace in the possibility that some of those votes might have come from the 142 MPS that make up the payroll vote – that in fact would be worse, although it is reasonable to believe it is likely.

The new date for the meaningful vote is now pencilled in as 14 January but there is no one who believes it can be saved from a mauling. The deal is dead – indeed, it is doubtful it was ever alive in the first place. The question being debated now is what does May do next; where does she turn when her deal is put out of its miserable existence?

Three camps are now coalescing inside the Cabinet from which she must choose what represents – for her – the lesser of three evils.

The first, represented by Michael