Theresa May didn’t look like she’d done enough in Strasbourg to win Tuesday’s vote

The prime minister flew to Strasbourg to announce that ‘legally binding’ changes had been secured to the Brexit deal – but will they be enough to win the vote on Tuesday night?

Theresa May did not look like a leader who had won the breakthrough she needed. In Strasbourg, with her voice hoarse, her face drawn and her manner serious, she claimed to have secured legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement. But she didn’t sound as if she believed it herself.

In fact, she has achieved significant changes. Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU Commission president, expressed it rather better than she did. The new joint instrument – a document attached to the withdrawal agreement and of equal legal weight – would ensure that the Irish backstop “will never be a trap”, he said. If it were ever to be used in that way, it could be brought to an end.

That does suggest a shift towards the British demands for the right to exit the backstop – the insurance policy designed to ensure an open border in Ireland. But, as the government motion to be put to the vote on Tuesday night says, it only “reduces the risk the UK could be deliberately held in the Northern Ireland backstop indefinitely”, it does not eliminate that risk entirely. It will be interesting to see what form of words Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, uses in his legal opinion.

But in the end it won’t be the words that matter, it will be what 116 MPs think they mean. The prime minister has to persuade that many MPs to change their vote from last time, when she was defeated by a margin of 230 in January. That means she has to persuade the DUP – that’s 10 votes – plus about 73 of the Tory rebels and 33 Labour MPs.

That does not look possible on the basis of what was achieved in Strasbourg, although if she could reduce the margin of defeat to 20-40 it is possible that, whatever Juncker said about “no third chances”, there could be another vote in a few days’ time. In the meantime, though, she would have to press ahead with the two further votes in the House of Commons that she has promised.

If the “improved” Brexit deal is rejected on Tuesday night, then the Commons will vote on Wednesday on whether it wants Britain to leave the EU without a deal. There is no doubt about the outcome of that vote, as only 50-60 Conservative MPs (and Kate Hoey) want that. Then on Thursday MPs will have to vote on whether or not Brexit should be postponed. At this point, it is possible that they would vote against that option as well, in which case that might be the chance for May to try a third time to get her deal through. Eventually MPs will have to decide to vote for her deal or delay, and delay seems more likely.

The problem with delay is that once Brexit has been postponed once, it could be postponed again, and we might never leave. That may be music to many people’s ears, but there are a lot of MPs, Conservative, Labour and DUP, who might think again if they thought that was going to be the outcome. They don’t have much longer to reconsider.