What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

If Brexit was about taking back control, Theresa May has lost it.

The Prime Minister looked and sounded like an onlooker on Monday, not the stateswoman our country demands in this hour of need.

This is fast becoming a moment of national ­humiliation, in which 27 European nations are more united than two dozen Cabinet Tories.

Promises given to leaders across the Channel and Irish Sea have no chance of being delivered.

And all the while real incomes and the real jobs of real people are on the line.

Not to mention the security of the nation.

Oh, and peace in a part of it riven by bloody conflict for three decades.

The amateurishness of the Downing Street operation is beyond risible.

Unless a rabbit is suddenly pulled from a hat, future generations will look back in ­astonishment at how we have sleepwalked into such an avoidable crisis.

Hoping something turns up isn’t a strategy. It is cowardice.

The Prime Minister must stand up for what she believes. If she still knows what that is.