Tories will need a miracle to prevent government collapsing over May’s pivot to ultra-soft Brexit

Well, Prime Minister, thank you for clearing that up. Theresa May spoke to the nation this evening in a bid to map out a way forward and, in typical style, she managed to leave everyone even more confused.

In a bid to break the logjam, May is seeking another extension and looking for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s help in passing her Withdrawal Agreement in exchange for a commitment to an ultra-soft Brexit, involving a custom’s union and strict alignment with the single market, and perhaps even a referendum on the deal. She wants talks with Corbyn. What a cheek, considering all that has happened and been said.

May’s short statement followed a marathon meeting of the cabinet, during which ministers clashed over what to do. As many as 14 of those present opposed the Prime Minister’s decision to seek an extension with Labour help, with several warning of the potentially dire consequences.

This seems to me to be the central point here. May has chosen a course of action that puts her at odds with most of her party, when she already has no authority because of previous episodes of ineptitude and excessive secrecy.

The Tory party in the Commons is split, roughly two thirds Brexity to one third Remain and/or ultra-soft Brexit. A few MPs sit, anguished, in the middle. But the balance of views is, as various votes have revealed of late, with the pro-Brexiteers. That is reflected in cabinet too.

They are now all expected to swallow this, that is an attempted deal with Jeremy Corbyn leading to the fifth largest economy in the world – the UK – being inside someone else’s customs union and having no say in its rules.

Perhaps Brexiteers – ministers and backbench MPs – will be sanguine about this or, after some shouting, they will calm down. That outcome seems, to say the least, highly unlikely.

Indeed, Jacob Rees-Mogg has said this evening that May is betraying Brexit via a deal with the Socialists. This underlines how little Tory trust there is left in the Prime Minister.

None of this is remotely sustainable for very long. The government now has a majority of only two. Two thirds of the cabinet is opposed to the Prime Minister’s policy to work with Labour to soften Brexit.

When a government cannot sustain – when it cannot win or hold votes in the Commons and the cabinet opposes the main policy of the government, and that policy is to work with the leader of the opposition to get round the MPs of the governing party – it does not, it cannot, in the end sustain.

How will it collapse? It could happen any number of ways, via an accidental general election, or with resignations or the EU not playing along, or even just with Tory horror at May agreeing to Corbyn’s demands.

Even if May is double-bluffing by trying to pin the blame on Labour, getting Corbyn in a few weeks to collapse the Brexit process rather than doing it herself, it can’t work if she has lost two thirds of her own side. Some are already, in furious protest, switching back to opposing May’s WA.

If May had at some point wants to pivot back towards no deal or no compromise, or to her deal and nothing else, then the soft-Brexit and Remain MPs on her own side will work with Labour to stop or revoke Article 50 entirely.

It will take a miracle to hold the Tory party together and keep this dead government in business through Theresa May’s attempt to forge a soft-Brexit pact with Jeremy Corbyn.