After a lot of optimistic leaks and noises, together with self important wisdoms from a phalanx of Brexit lawyers, once again talks with the EU have ground to a halt. The reason is the same as it has been from the very beginning. May does not listen. She keeps going back, or sending ministers back, to demand of the EU something which it will not and cannot give. The kind of stuff the ERG talk about and the legal jiggery pokery of Geoffrey Cox cuts no ice at all in Brussels or in any capitals of the EU.
Moreover although the DUP is against the Backstop, it is clear that the majority in Northern Ireland want it, otherwise they face social and economic mayhem. There might yet be a last minute breakthrough, a cavalry over the hill moment, but reports indicate that the cabinet, which now spends most of its time having rows, is resigned to defeat next week by as many as 100 votes.
Meanwhile another row has broken out in the government and country which could prove just as difficult for May, not least because it goes to the heart of savaging her non listening persona. It is about the stabbing crisis, the lack of police, youth, community and education resources and a string of stupid decisions May took while Home Secretary. A score of former and current police chiefs, as well as her current Home Secretary and a growing mass of victims’ grieving families, have attacked her part in stoking the knife problem into a crisis because she would not listen.
It could yet all work out. But on the other hand it might not. Very might not.