May's Brexit deal set for another defeat as clock ticks down

All she can promise Westminster is yet more talks with Europe in the days and weeks ahead, despite the EU’s insistence that talking is not going to change a thing.

“It is pretty clear that Brussels won’t give the PM any significant rewrite of the deal agreed in November. So, when she brings her deal back to the floor of the House it will be defeated again,” said SNP Justice and Home Affairs spokesperson Joanna Cherry.

READ MORE: Top European official no longer 'optimistic' that no-deal Brexit can be avoided

“With three Cabinet ministers coming out in favour of an extension to Article 50, which the SNP have advocated for some time, it is looking likely that’s what will happen as a result of next week’s debates and amendments.”

Tory MPs who have defected to The Independent Groups last week could be joined by more defectors, potentially more significant than the relatively modest initial heft.

Cherry said the last week “was disastrous for May and Corbyn” and that “their failures of leadership” were to blame for the ”defections and divisions” in their party ranks.

She went on to reject that Brexit negotiation chaos would be the case with independence.

READ MORE: Is leaving a Union that's 300 years old harder than Brexit? Not necessarily ...

“Dr Kirsty Hughes of SCER’s scholarly and impartial paper on the facile comparisons that have suggested the chaos of Brexit would be replicated if Scotland votes for independence concluded that independence would be a very different process from Brexit and there is no automatic reason to presume that independence divorce talks would face the ‘perfect and chaotic storm’ of Brexit,” she said.

May now faces what commentators have dubbed “the week from Hell”. Deja vu hangs heavy in the air around Westminster.

It has pervaded her attempts to amend her Brexit deal and placate the baying opposition which assails her from all sides of the Commons.

While it is difficult to judge whether May still registers each individual set-back anymore, such is the persistence of the concentrated traumas she and her leadership have suffered ever since she took the big job, the Tory defections to The Independent Groups may have been felt.

In Brussels, she met with Juncker, who sported a sticking plaster on his cheek. “Mrs May didn’t inflict this on me,” the commission president insisted, putting the nick down to an “unfortunate gesture” conjured mid-shave. Regardless, they did not shake hands for cameras on Wednesday.

READ MORE: Latest big Unionist scare story destroyed by independent report

Indeed, the most significant wound was yet another to May’s leadership, confidence and her chances of a deal. All she brought back to Blighty was yet another date for more talks.

May is looking for assurances that the backstop will not be permanent. This would come via a legal supplement to the Withdrawal Agreement. She also seeks a guarantee that there would be no need to establish a hard border.

But the EU have put up staunch resistance to any notion of a change which could impact upon the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement.

It feeds into further fears that the Prime Minister’s tactic all along has been to run the clock down, leaving the options her deal or no deal.

Parliament could be forced to fall into line – but her Brexit track record so far does not bode well for such a scheme paying off.

Cabinet ministers, in David Gauke, Amber Rudd and Greg Clark, wrote in the Daily Mail that May must push back Brexit if Parliament defeat her this week. David Mundell admitted the disastrous impact Brexit would have on Scotland and issued another supine resignation threat if there was no deal.

Across the sea, Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney unveiled a significant piece of no-deal legislation on Friday – “the product of a root-and-branch trawl of our laws to determine what changes will be needed if the UK becomes a third country overnight”.

Nine governmental departments mustered the work protecting jobs, citizen’s rights and business, which, Coveney hopes, will never see the light of day.

A “disorderly” Brexit, he said, would be a “lose, lose, lose” for the UK, the EU and the Republic of Ireland. He told a press conference that his wish is for the emergency plans to “remain on the shelf”, warning that a no-deal Brexit would be a “major shock” to the Irish economy.

Today, May is in Egypt for the EU-Arab summit. She can be expected to try to capitalise on Donald Tusk and Angela Merkel being on the guest list. She will be asking for sunshine, because she has a big battle waiting back at home.