Here on Sky News we could not quite believe our own verified numbers of a thumping majority against the government of 226.

They were not quite right. It was 230 and of those 118 were Conservatives, more than a third of the party’s MPs, and more than voted against the PM in the 1922 Committee no confidence vote last month.

A PM resigned to defeat, but not resigning. This thumping loss for a serving PM on the most important piece of legislation, the raison d’etre of this government, cannot credibly be framed as a mere procedural setback, which was what the PM appeared to suggest after the vote.

For others, this is a comprehensive failure of strategy, tactics and leadership that suggests that this Parliament was never going to back a deal like this. That effectively there is not a negotiated solution from Conservative MPs, DUP MPs and a few Labour rebels.

But perhaps even more than that – a defeat of this magnitude so tarnishes the PM and her deal, that she cannot credibly return to the Commons with anything recognisably a version of it.

It seems very difficult to imagine that there is a plausibly offered change to the deal that could turn the votes of the 116 MPs required.

Indeed the question is whether the PM’s handling of this has basically killed the appetite for a compromise. Instead of forging consensus and cross party support in the national interest, the PM finds the middle ground collapsing beneath her.

Heads have been turned by this rolling calamity. The one thing that united the queues in the No lobby, this coalition of the uncompromising, was a need to kill the PM’s deal.

The early signs already are that the PM holding out the hand of bipartisanship will not stretch to inviting Jeremy Corbyn to Downing St, nor contemplating a permanent customs union.

Some in Cabinet are aghast, and willing to give the PM one more circuit of an appeal to Brussels and another attempt in the Commons.

But influential MPs suggest a second defeat will see her authority disappear, and a move in Cabinet.

The contours of this argument are now being clarified. The middle ground eroded. And what is left will be a straight up fight between no deal and a referendum, with a side order of Article 50 delay.

:: Follow and watch the confidence vote live with a special programme on Sky News from 6-9pm on Wednesday evening

Source: Read Full Article