Theresa May needs to push a few Brexit boundaries with EU after latest crunch No Deal vote defeat in Commons

WHEN Theresa May goes to Brussels next week to bat for changes to the backstop, she will do so with a large crack in her bat.

The symbolic defeat that MPs inflicted on her Brexit plan on Thursday night has significantly weakened her negotiating position.

The EU doesn’t want to make significant changes to the backstop. It repeats endlessly that the withdrawal agreement is closed and that it isn’t going to reopen it.

When the Brady amendment passed the House of Commons, saying Parliament would accept the deal if the backstop was replaced, the EU responded by saying they didn’t think this Parliament majority was “stable”.

Thursday night’s vote helps them make that argument.

As one No10 source laments: “We don’t want to give the Europeans a chance not to engage with us.”

I understand that when the Brexit Secretary, Steve Barclay, dined in Brussels this week Sabine Weyand — the EU’s deputy negotiator — spent her time telling him that a customs union was the only major change available to the backstop.

The EU think that Corbyn’s support for it means that a customs union could pass Parliament. I am told Barclay attempted to disabuse them of this idea.

Mrs May can’t entirely escape blame for this week’s fiasco.

No10 should have made sure that its own MPs were happy with the wording before publishing the motion.

“She’s like a football team that can’t string two wins together,” complains one minister.

But the Tory Brexit ultras should have paid more heed to the real-world consequences of their actions.

BREXIT STALEMATE

Another effect of Thursday night’s defeat for the Government is that it increases the chances of the Cooper amendment passing on February 27.

This would compel the Government to seek an extension to Article 50 if Mrs May hasn’t won Parliament’s support for an exit deal by March 13.

One Cabinet minister, with close links to several of the ministers who might quit to ensure this amendment goes through, tells me it is now “much more likely” to pass.

This Secretary of State complains that the Government’s defeat “makes it harder to make the argument that we should hold our nerve” as “the best evidence for holding your nerve was that the outcome would be the same as when the Brady amendment went through”.

Another minister warns: “If she doesn’t come back with something cooking by the 27th, there’ll be trouble.”

'THEY NEED TO HAVE A PLAN'

I understand those around Mrs May know they need to have shown progress by the 27th.

One insider tells me: “If the Government doesn’t want Parliament to take control, they need to have a plan.

They can’t just sit there for two weeks.”

Other Cabinet ministers aren’t so sure Cooper will pass.

One tells me: “I don’t think the ministers will resign, and if they don’t resign, then it doesn’t pass.”

If Cooper does go through, politics will enter into an even more unpredictable phase. One May Cabinet ally is predicting a general election if this happens.

But it is hard to see how a general election could end in anything other than disaster for the Tories in these circumstances.

If Mrs May is forced to ask the EU for an extension but with no Parliamentary agreement in sight, the EU is more likely to offer a long extension than a short one.

I understand the view in several EU capitals is that the longer the extension, the more likely it is that the political dynamics in the UK will change.

But a long extension would prolong this damaging, political uncertainty.

This Government, and this Parliament’s, job is to get Brexit done. Time is running short. Both Parliament and the Government need to get their act together.

Are Labour ills down to the NHS?

WHAT explains the fall in Jeremy Corbyn’s ratings and Labour’s position in the polls?
There are a whole host of explanations for this put forward.

Some say it is down to his Brexit position, others to Labour’s failure to deal with anti-Semitism.

But it may well be because the NHS – traditionally Labour’s strongest suit – is not the most important issue in politics right now.

Last winter, 73 per cent of voters regarded the health service as one of the most important issues facing the country.

But that number is down to 51 per cent this winter, according to the pollster Ipsos Mori.

Tellingly, Labour devoted its party political broadcast this week to the NHS to try to push the issue up the agenda.

The question now is whether the Tory decision to spend an extra £20billion a year on the health service by 2023 leads to a decline in public concern.

But in January A&E departments recorded their worst waiting times since the figures started being collected in 2010.

It is clear that health could soon shoot back up the political agenda.

The Tory plan to spend more money on the NHS will only work if this money is spent effectively.

If it is, then there is a chance it could begin to address public worries.

Matt Hancock, the new Health Secretary, is setting up a new NHS-X unit to try to bring the health service into the digital era, which would help the NHS to better use its resources.

There are many things the Tories have to do to win the next election – not least, deliver Brexit – but they must also reassure voters on the NHS.

Jihadi brides must pay

THE lives of British servicemen nor diplomatic personnel should not be risked to bring back so-called jihadi brides to the United Kingdom.

But if they can be returned they should be subject to the full force of the law.

They should be investigated and prosecuted if there is sufficient evidence.

Justice must be done and must be seen to be done.

Fight 'em on the breaches

JOHN McDONNELL saying that he regards Winston Churchill as a “villain” is revealing; and shows how far outside the mainstream Labour tradition he is.

Churchill wouldn’t have been Prime Minister but for the Labour Party’s willingness to serve in a government led by him.

When it came to the crucial decision to fight on in 1940, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, two Labour members of the War Cabinet, were more solid than some of Churchill’s Tory colleagues.

But Attlee and Greenwood came from a very different Labour tradition to McDonnell: They weren’t Marxists or Trotskyists.

McDonnell and Corbyn don’t come from the mainstream of the traditional Labour Party and that is why a Labour split after Brexit is inevitable.

There are some Labour MPs who are just not prepared to try to put into power people who are so outside the traditional bounds of the party.

• James Forsyth is political editor of The Spectator.