Theresa May could still force through her Brexit deal – and she’d sacrifice her party to do it

A competent negotiator should be able to bring enough dissenters on board to produce a majority in the House of Commons

Foreign observers of the UK’s Great Political Drama are apparently flummoxed. They find it hard to understand how Theresa May can suffer a Commons defeat of historic proportions one day, only to be endorsed as prime minister in a strict party lines vote the next. If the defeat of her Brexit “deal” was so epic, how come she was not turfed out of office by a similar margin?

The secret is that – for all the apocalyptic headlines that followed Tuesday’s vote – this was not a defeat like any other. Usually, when governments lose a crucial Commons vote it is because a majority of MPs have preferred an alternative to the one the government has proposed: the government’s defeat is the opposition’s victory. This was not the case on Tuesday.

Theresa May’s deal with Brussels was a compromise that pleased barely one-third of MPs. But those who voted against did so for quite opposite reasons.

Half rejected it as being too “soft” and a “betrayal” of Brexit. The other half judged it too “hard” or did not want any form of Brexit at all. The fact is that, along with there being no Commons majority for the “deal” on offer, there was no majority for anything else, which is why May and her government remain in office.

That almost exact three-way split also signals a possible way forward, because any competent negotiator should be able to bring a sufficient number of dissenters on board to produce a majority in the House of Commons. The difficulty for everyone (including Theresa May) is that any solution is going to look a lot like the “deal” that MPs have just rejected by this deceptively large majority. Such tends to be the way with compromises.

There has been much condemnation of the prime minister over the past week, including some very personal criticism from the opposition benches during the confidence debate. She has been described as having too narrow a mindset, of lacking the imagination to find alternatives, of (still) being an inadequate public persuader. Her oratory was particularly contrasted with that of Michael Gove, both during the “deal” debate and when he wound up the confidence debate for the government.

Essentially, she has been condemned for not being up to the job, either at this crossroads in the country’s history or at all. And there is truth in the accusations. Inspirational leadership is not her forte. Would she have won the party leadership had there been a contest? Her performance at the despatch box or at (carefully controlled) public gatherings leaves a lot to be desired, as does her profile on the international stage. She does not “travel” well, at home or abroad (nor, it has to be said, did her predecessor).

She made a fateful misjudgement in calling an election when she did not need to – as fateful as Gordon Brown’s misjudgement in not calling one – and paid the price for a lacklustre campaign in the loss of her party’s majority. At least some, if not all, of her difficulties today stem from her dependence since then on Northern Ireland’s DUP and the arch-Brexiteers. This is one reason why she was not able to “reach out” to the opposition – something she is now being told she should have done a long time ago.

On the credit side, there are the much-used words “duty” and “resilience”. Even her sharpest critics concede she has hung on in there against all odds. There must have been times, notably as the resignations rolled in after the Chequers “agreement”, when she was tempted to jack it all in and leave her fractious colleagues to fight it out between them. Yet at each crunch point she has pressed on, losing a couple of Brexit secretaries, her foreign secretary, and a clutch of more junior ministers and whips along the way. That she is still standing is indeed a tribute to both her sense of duty and her resilience.

And still she treks on – fortified by the recognition, perhaps, that she was actually right first time around (she and her beleaguered Europe adviser, Olly Robbins) or as right as anyone is going to be. If there is to be any Brexit deal capable of getting through both the Commons and Brussels, then the one that is currently in contention is probably very close to what it will be. This is indeed what May has said in every speech she has given since Chequers, though it is not only her lack of charisma that has prevented her from getting her point across.

The country is as split as the politicians, and it is split in many degrees, from “hard” Brexit all the way to what might be called “hard” Remain. But it should never be forgotten that the EU referendum not only attracted a record turnout but was also close: 52 vs 48 per cent is not a landslide, nor is it a mandate for flouncing out of the European Union, shaking the dust off our feet. Arch-Brexiteers must moderate their ambitions, just as arch-Remainers are having to do. A hard Brexit, a no-deal Brexit, would be as unrepresentative of the result as would a U-turn to Remain.

Theresa May must now try to consolidate the middle ground. A more adept politician might have responded to the 2017 election result by proposing a grand coalition a la Angela Merkel. A more forward-looking leader, following the defeat of the “deal”, might now be trying to forge a government of national unity in a wartime mode. Given that grand gestures are not her way, the cross-party consultation she has announced could be the next best thing.

It is also fairly clear, following Tuesday’s vote, that the only realistic chance of winning a majority will come from a “soft” Brexit, much as is enshrined in the current “deal”. And if the Irish backstop is to be avoided, the best alternative would be to accept a customs border down the Irish Sea – a solution that could well command a majority in Northern Ireland.

The downside, of course, is such a scenario would almost inevitably drive arch-Brexiteers into opposition, along with the DUP – and they will not go without very loud and very bitter recriminations. We could then be set for another parliamentary high noon, as the prime minister risked sacrificing her party’s Commons majority for – as she might present it – the greater national good. Having come this far, would she flinch at the prospect, even the prospect of going down in history as the leader whose compromise broke her party? I doubt it.

Ideally, of course, no party leader and no prime minister would start from here. A referendum which produces the “wrong”, ie non status quo, result is something our political system cannot easily bear. Just as EU enlargement arguably spelled the end of the UK’s membership, so Brexit could force the Conservative Party to split into its long-warring sides, with a Labour split possibly to follow. If a byproduct of a “soft” Brexit were an overdue political realignment, should many tears be shed?