Theresa’s Mayhem: Attorney General’s assessment leaves British PM facing yet another defeat

After an action-packed Monday that saw Theresa May jet off to Strasbourg in a desperate bid to gain some sort of change to the Irish backstop to her Withdrawal Agreement  - a Withdrawal Agreement that was rejected by a mammoth 230 votes in one of the most humiliating Parliamentary defeats in British history and will be voted on once again later today.

In the dying hours of Monday, Mrs. May claimed to have secured “legally binding” changes to the deal in the hope of allaying fears amongst MPs back home of a backstop that the UK would not unilaterally be able to get out of and thus leave the UK into a customs arrangement indefinitely.

In addition to this, there was a joint statement from the UK and EU which outlined a commitment to replacing the backstop with alternative arrangements by December 2020.

But it looks increasingly likely that her trip has given her little other than a bit of jet-lag. A large number of MPs remain unconvinced that the changes the Prime Minister claims she secured are as robust as she says they are – or indeed needs them to be in order to get her deal through.

In an exhibition of late night Parliamentary drama, Sir Keir Starmer – the Shadow Brexit Secretary from the Labour Party – damningly held up a stack of papers and asked “[I]s a single word of the Withdrawal Agreement different now to the document that was agreed on November 25?"

The verdict of most people would be “no”.

Many MPs in the Conservative Party were said to be waiting for the Attorney General – Geoffrey Cox – to have his say on any legal changes in the deal. His assessment was a hammer blow for Mrs.May. He said that while the changes "reduce the risk that the United Kingdom could be indefinitely and involuntarily detained", the “legal risk remains unchanged”. In other words, the changes agreed were not strong enough to give the UK unilateral means of exiting the backstop.

This judgement will do little to persuade those MPs who voted against her deal the first time to vote for it today. It did no wonders for the markets either. The Pound dropped by more than 1% against the dollar following the Attorney General’s assessment.

That said, Mr Cox and others have all emphasised that the vote is a political decision down to the judgement of each individual MP.

Perhaps Mrs. May’s best hope is the threat of no Brexit at all. With barely over two weeks to go until Brexit, a defeat today would massively increase the chances of either a no-deal Brexit or, on the flip side, a delayed Brexit through the extension of Article 50. Labour have already made clear their rejection of this deal and no-deal and Jeremy Corbyn recently opened the door to a second referendum in the event of a no-deal Brexit being imposed. In a straight choice between no-deal and a delayed Brexit (or no Brexit at all), the majority of MPs would probably choose the latter.

As this is a real possibility, the Brexiteers in the Prime Minister’s Party may be tempted to back this deal with the knowledge that if it passes, Brexit will be realised. Leaving the EU – however impurely – will be the priority for these MPs. As prominent Brexiteer put it, the question MPs must ask themselves is “[D]oes this deliver enough of Brexit to make this worth accepting?”

It is always a dangerous game to predict Parliamentary votes and the most surprising result can always be delivered. But even this is not really a crumb of comfort for Theresa May. The same danger of predicting was outlined before the first vote and was proven to be correct; the result was surprising – the margin of her defeat was even bigger than most had predicted.

Conversely, tonight’s vote could finally prove to be the final nail in the coffin for Theresa May – a coffin on which the wood is barely visible after the nails hammered into it over the last two years.

She has the next few hours to try and save her premiership and her legacy.