The options presented by May are dire – all that is left is a Final Say

For all the manifest uncertainties around Brexit, some unknowns are more unknown than others, as Donald Rumsfeld might say. Indeed some are actually strikingly clear.

First, the prime minister shows every sign of wanting to stay at the crease. This is, after all, her style – being the woman who is there to soak up the pain, to get the job done, to act as a human punchbag. She is well used to setbacks. Her hubristic decision to hold a snap general election last year, then losing her working overall majority, may be said to be the fundamental cause of much of her misfortune. That was a failure. When she proudly presented her plan for Brexit at a special cabinet session at her country home, it was rejected, after an initial show of support from her ministers. When she took the proposals to the EU Salzburg summit, she was rebuffed and ridiculed (no “cherry-picking” of the black forest gateau), and hurtfully. Now she is seeing her UK-EU Brexit deal – one that many deemed impossible – attacked on all sides; yet another May scheme that is “dead on arrival”.

So she is no stranger to disappointment and defeat – and treating both as mere imposters. Her sense of duty and capacity for hard work will sustain her, even as some in her party withdraw support.

As for the vote of no confidence that is now facing her, well, again, it is a thing she is well used to. After the snap election of 2017 she was forced – according to some accounts – to undertake not to lead her party into another general election. In any case, there was no one apparently willing to go so far as to depose her. Much the same dynamic applies today. Although in the privacy of a secret ballot many of her ministers and MPs may vote against her, the likelihood is that a party led by Dominic Raab or Boris Johnson is not an attractive one across all shades of opinion in her party.

The Tories’ very divisions are a source of strength to the prime minister. Now, with Michael Gove still in place, and Amber Rudd returning to the political top table, the balance of power and opinion in her cabinet and in her party has tilted slightly towards her. The appointment of the little-known Stephen Barclay as Brexit secretary will not tilt it back again.

She will win any vote of no confidence – because her enemies are so divided, and when they face up to it they know that no one, now, could get a better deal from Europe. Angela Merkel has said as much.

Nor would Ms May lose a vote of confidence in Her Majesty’s government, the first stage in any move to either force a general election or install a minority Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn. It is a ploy that will not work, because even the most ardent pro-European is terrified by the risk of a Corbyn-led government with a Eurosceptic policy.

Still, while there seems a strong chance that by the end of the year the UK will still have Ms May at the head of a Conservative government, her deal with the EU will have been rejected by the House of Commons. Combined, that means a zombie government being supported by a parliament that has no majority for any of the current options.

The only legal (as opposed to political) certainty in all of this is that the legislation authorising Article 50 means that, under UK law, the country will leave the EU come what may on 29 March 2019. So dire would a no deal be that even the likes of Mr Gove find it too appalling to contemplate, and besides there is no support for it in parliament. There may be other ways to break the deadlock, but the most obvious is to return the whole mess to the electorate and give them a Final Say on the deal that is, in effect, being presented by the EU on a take it or leave it basis. The electorate now has a sufficient degree of certainty about what is available for Britain to make that informed choice. After 29 months of dither, division and resignations, the terms of Brexit are actually a “known known”. So now we can decide.