Remainers now have a chance to go for gold, so why should they settle for Theresa May's booby prize?

Even by her pitifully low standards, Theresa May’s last attempt to drag her Brexit withdrawal agreement through the Commons smacks of desperation. She has tried everything, throwing every tactical manoeuvre she can no matter how much it deduces and poisons British politics.
Let’s recap. Insistence that she had negotiated a good deal gave way to bogus renegotiations that tried to fool everyone in to thinking substantively better terms had been negotiated. When that failed, she went for blackmail: 'Get my deal through if you want me gone!'

 Unfortunately for her, it was already clear to the rest of the world that Theresa May’s reading of the political situation at any moment is at least 6 months behind everyone else’s. A lame duck, she is already being swept along by a tide of events, ineffectually flailing around trying to grasp water.

She is actually so breathtakingly arrogant or incompetent that she can’t even see that she has made the prospects for her deal even worse, because all the important bits will be entrusted to a new Tory leader who, I suspect, will be a swivel-eyed Brexiteer. More recently, she has simply been churning out: “Let’s get Brexit done.” Translation: let’s just get something over the line; don’t worry about evaluating its merits.

All of these approaches have failed. Yet from the dying embers of the most dismal premiership in living memory, comes the last gasp: 'Okay, back my deal and you can have a vote on a referendum!'

I urge those fellow remainers who have become utterly convinced that Mrs May is beyond help, to see that there is actually a glimmer of strategic thought behind this last stunt – finally a bit of genuine, reality-grounded political trickery which they mustn’t fall for.

Her promise of a vote on a second referendum is intended to neutralise remainers. Having played a game of trying to please both sides of her warring party all along, Mrs May finally seems to have twigged that her brexiteer head-bangers will never capitulate. They would rather their ship sinks and they all drown howling protestations of their fanatical ideological purity as they go under.

Remainers, she sees as altogether more easily manipulated. They will, she believes, fall in to line if they are thrown the bone of a vote on their precious referendum – a goal she will of course do her utmost to ruin for us, no doubt bolstered by a strong showing for the Brexit Party in the upcoming European elections. What unholy alliances she has made!

Mrs May is gambling everything on this meagre offer. Oh sure, she has made a nonsensical pledge about a bill on worker’s rights – nonsensical not because of the issues concerned, but because the Labour leadership, hapless though it is, will know very well that it is not the case that these issues have to be bound to a withdrawal agreement, and that a collapse of this government could lead to an election where they could make their case, and if successful implement those rights as a stand-alone project.

Platitudes about temporary customs unions, also designed to placate them, may only last the duration of this parliament, as Mrs May herself has said. She isn’t even trying to make these concessions genuinely compelling.

These merely form the window dressing. It’s that referendum, and a belief that fear will prevail when that vote happens, that Mrs May now relies upon to once again wheel out her discredited deal.

If remainers give her their backing, however, they will be guilty of a monumental misjudgement. The truth is that there isn't, and never has been, support in the House of Commons for leaving the European Union without a deal. For every threat that the likes of Andrea Leadsom venomously spit out, the stark reality for brexiteers is that if they want out, it’s May’s way or the highway. Their sabotage of their own treasured dream is a gift that remainers must grasp with both hands.

Whilst Mother Theresa tries to rescue them and put them back on the path of Brexit righteousness, remainers must take this chance to stop Brexit altogether. If Mrs May isn’t backed, don’t for one second think that our chances of another referendum go up in smoke.

The prospect that Article 50 might be revoked will become a very real one. The resistance to leaving without a deal will mount, once it becomes clear that this is the only type of Brexit there is – Brexit, after all, means Brexit!

At least, we stand to get another chance to put our case before the public again, with the nightmare of no deal revealed for what it is, and the spectacular failure of the Brexit vision fully exposed. At best, Brexit might simply fall apart.

Mrs May is trying to get remainers to sell out cheaply. Since her preoccupation is her deal, that makes sense. It might once have worked, but not anymore.

Brexit has failed, Mrs May has failed, compromise has failed. Remainers now have a chance to go for gold, so why should they settle for Theresa May’s booby prize?