Theresa May knows, as does everyone else in the House of Commons, that she currently lacks the votes to win approval for her Brexit deal. It was inevitable, therefore, that this week’s agreement on, and publication of, the 26-page political declaration on the future EU-UK partnership should have been widely treated as another step in her uphill battle to assemble an elusive majority to get her Brexit deal through parliament.
That was certainly the way that No 10 handled the announcement that the declaration had been agreed after the prime minister’s trip to Brussels on Wednesday. Mrs May used all the weapons available to her to make a sale to MPs on her return: a social media buildup in the morning; a televised appearance in Downing Street in time for the lunchtime bulletins; and, in the afternoon, another marathon question-and-answer session at the Commons dispatch box. Mrs May had used these tactics to her advantage last week – her ratings had risen sharply. Now, with a political wind behind her, and exploiting an abject few days for her “Dad’s Army” nationalist critics, she was clearly determined to turn the screws on longtime hard Brexiters in the Conservative party.
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