Before the general election, the Brexiteers would boast that everything had gone their way. Yes, those wretched judges had forced MPs to vote on whether to trigger Article 50 – but they had done so by a majority of 372. The Treasury-forecast recession hadn’t occurred. And polls showed the public backing Brexit by a comfortable margin. After Theresa May, the Leavers’ adopted empress, called an early election, they anticipated a remorseless march to victory.
But the Brexiteers’ forward march was instead halted. Though 85 per cent of voters backed parties committed to Brexit (if not to the Tories’ version), the political atmosphere has been transformed. The government is negotiating from a position of weakness, rather than of strength, and the mood is newly volatile.
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