Brexit: Is winning the vote in the Commons really an impossible task?

If you only listened to question after question in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon, protesting loudly against the Prime Minister's compromise, you might wonder why she just does not pack up and go home. not at home.

How can Ms. May turn around the resistance wave?

Did she finally meet her impossible task?

In private, many members are even more acerbic about the conclusion of this compromise agreement than in public – and that says a lot.

And among the number of skeptics, there are also many ministers.

That it is ministers who think that the plan will fail and who are then willing to resign, they then wish to remain in the single market and in the EU customs union. ..

…. or if they are members of the Brexite government who think that Theresa May has made a bad luck by staying too close to the EU …

… or even the members of another group – those who examine the agreement and think that it is a dark compromise, but realistic, but then look at the numbers and think that 's right? he just can not go.

"Strangely at ease"

But even if they are fewer in number, some members of the government who have the courage to believe that there is a chance that the agreement passes.

This is the reason why the Prime Minister will spend every day for the next fifteen days arguing resolutely in favor of the agreement and defending his record over and over again. And then, yes, again: in his eyes, this agreement is the only show in town.

And while MPs, certainly his supporters, may have grinned at the torrent of criticism this afternoon, there is no indication at this point that the Prime Minister intends to move away from her position.

In fact, as the days become more and more desperate, at some of her public appearances and press conferences, she seems strangely more comfortable, joking about the names of reporters . She may have finally been able to stick to a simple Brexit message with which she is really comfortable: in her eyes, it is this affair or what is disastrous.

And after being maneuvered in this position, she has no choice but to continue. Her political fate is to know if she can pass the contract. The stability of her government and, she said, of the country too.

& # 39; Merciless Management & # 39;

And all there is in his antecedents tells us, as his colleagues in private confirm, that the Prime Minister's style is stubborn and inflexible; a weakness as well as a strength.

Alongside what will undoubtedly be a ruthless management of Conservative MPs, Plan No 10 is to use relentlessly and publicly the fear of the unknown – the anxiety aroused by political chaos – to put his colleagues compliance.

It can work. It may well be that no. But Theresa May will not fail because she has not tried it.

We now know that the vote that will make history will take place on December 11.

We may not know until then in which direction it will go.