Never mind can May save her Brexit deal – can the Tories save their party?

Can Theresa May save her deal? That depends on whether MPs – and in particular her own backbenchers – are looking for ladders to climb down or crosses on which to crucify themselves. Having given the prime minister another political bloody nose, are her colleagues on the hunt for compromises or is the opposition within her Conservative party basically implacable?

There’s no single position, but there are hardliners on both sides of the Tory party. Many Conservatives could potentially be won round, having now registered their disapproval of the deal. But diehards are showing little interest in shifting position. A few extreme remainers, are determined to rerun the referendum, and so reject any Brexit, even the softest possible so-called Norway plus form. At the other end, kamikaze Eurosceptics seem prepared to bring down the entire temple to secure their ideal Brexit. “Bin the backstop,” they demand, something that will inexorably lead to a no-deal exit. Brexit itself now risks being killed by this sort of supporter – by those who claim to love it the most.

Some of the opposition to the prime minister’s deal is, frankly, based on personal or political problems rather than the policy of what she’s actually agreed with the EU. Last month, May survived a confidence vote within the Conservative party in which 117 of her own MPs opposed her in a secret ballot on her leadership. On Tuesday, 118 of her MPs voted against her deal – almost the exact same margin. A sizeable slice of her party has just fallen out of love with her. And with the race to succeed her becoming ever more open, too many Tory big beasts have their eyes on a future prize.

Part of this political mess is the prime minister’s fault. Even at the best of times, she is a wooden political performer. It’s striking that the strongest speeches defending May’s flagship policy – her Brexit deal – have been made by other ministers. Her divisive rhetoric after the EU referendum with talk of “citizens of nowhere” and her stubborn refusal to guarantee rights for EU nationals living in the UK (contra the commitments of colleagues who had actually campaigned for leave) helped exacerbate divisions in the country and the Conservative party, rather than bringing people together.

But it’s also the case that Brexit was always going to require challenging compromises. Campaigns can be conducted in poetry; governing requires prose. And negotiating, with a strong but wounded counter-party, which has its own interests, was always going to be difficult. Then again, May has made major mistakes, from triggering article 50 without an agreed plan, to accepting the concept of a backstop without locking down what it would mean.

The biggest single factor shaping Brexit, though, is the result on 8 June 2017. In calling a general election, in which she subsequently lost her already slim majority, May set the course for what was bound to be a softer Brexit. She lost the ability to stare down opponents in the Commons, and damaged the credibility at home and in Brussels of her prior claim that she would leave without a deal.

Despite Tuesday’s enormous defeat, little has ultimately changed. There are still just three options – Brexit with no deal (which a large majority of MPs are determined to prevent), stopping Brexit (probably via a second referendum), or leaving with a version of the prime minister’s deal. All three seem largely impossible. Yet one of those paths will have to be followed.

There are noisy calls for a plan B, but the truth is there is no negotiated alternative deal on the table. Some demand a pivot to Norway plus, but its advocates admit this would mean accepting the entire binding withdrawal agreement, while tweaking just the political declaration to narrow the range of future outcomes. Plan B is premised on accepting plan A in full.

May remains in a parlous position. A harder Brexit is not on offer from Brussels, and so any significant move in that direction would mean no deal. Shifting to a softer Brexit would alienate more of her own backbenchers. Although wounded, she is not yet politically finished, but she is fast running out of options. At some point, she may decide that she has one significant card left – committing to relinquish the party leadership after the end of article 50 to allow a new generation to lead the next stage of negotiations. Some critics of her deal have conceded to me, that this concession, combined with some further binding clarification of the backstop’s exit mechanism, could prevent them standing in the way of the deal.

Ironically, Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to try to trigger a general election may strengthen the prime minister. Firstly, it moves the political story on, away from whether she has a plan B. Second, she is almost certain to win the vote of confidence this evening, securing her own position. Third, if Labour’s bid to topple the government fails, attention will quickly shift to whether they now back a second referendum or not. If they do, Theresa May can present herself as the only national party leader determined to defend Brexit. That may just help bring some of the Conservative party back together again. But the next few weeks, as parliament seeks to wrestle control of Brexit, will mean no let up in the political crisis.

• Henry Newman is the director of Open Europe. He has worked in the Cabinet Office and Ministry of Justice