After the historically unprecedented defeat of May’s Brexit deal, what comes next? In her speech to the House of Commons, Theresa May promised not to run the clock down and to reach out to senior parliamentarians to work out what Brexit deal could pass the House of Commons. Unfortunately, this promising development was immediately undercut by briefing that she wished to maintain her “red lines” which just can’t be done if she wants to get a Brexit deal through Parliament.
It was said of Lyndon B Johnson that nobody knew better how to count votes in a legislature – an essential political skill in the USA where a division between the executive and the legislature is the norm. Theresa May desperately needs an LBJ to tell her what deal can be passed in Parliament.
However, without claiming I have the skills of an LBJ, the size of the defeat makes it clear that she needs to switch 116 votes without losing any. This rule out any minor fiddles and means she needs to find a group with that many votes to pass any legislation. There are lots of smaller groupings with interesting ideas, but they don’t have the votes.
The only possible options with those kinds of votes are as follows:
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