Chancellor Philip Hammond leaves Downing Street | Leon Neal/Getty Images brexit files insight Philip Hammond’s soft Brexit is really hard Brexit delayed The UK chancellor was the ‘last great hope’ of the Remain camp but he’s really heading in the same direction as the prime minister.

LONDON — Britain’s Brexit position is once again in flux. But one thing is clear — it isn’t being dictated by Prime Minister Theresa May.

Instead, it is at the whim of her cabinet, kept in line by the Conservative Party in parliament. The fundamental reality of British politics today is the return of cabinet government — the collective rule of the country by a group of egos vying for dominance, just about keeping each other in check through a self-interested survival instinct not to let Labour into power.

At any time the whole thing could come crashing down if the big beasts at the top fall too far out of line with their foot soldiers in parliament. It is politics in the raw: of shifting alliances and late-night deals.

Into this mix steps Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, the former “last great hope” of the Remainers who looked set to be sacked by May a few days ago only to be resurrected by her political failure.

In his annual Mansion House address to the City of London, which was cancelled Thursday in view of the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London, Hammond was due to spell out the Treasury’s concerns about Brexit.

According to leaked briefings — another sign of the collapse of Number 10’s authority — Hammond was prepared to warn the prime minister of the dangers of a hard Brexit without transitional measures to cushion the blow of leaving the EU single market and customs union.

Another leak in today’s papers reveals he has been joined in the fight by Home Secretary Amber Rudd. The new First Secretary of State Damian Green — an arch Remainer and May ally who is now deputy prime minister in all but name — is also on their side.

Green has also been appointed to a slimmed-down sub-committee of the cabinet which will decide Brexit, alongside Hammond, Rudd, David Davis and Boris Johnson, in a move that tilts the balance of power toward the soft Brexiteers.

But it is worth looking at the soft Brexiteers’ reported demands closely.

Hammond, for one, does not appear to be advocating a very soft Brexit at all. Certainly not as soft as that called for by his predecessor George Osborne in the Evening Standard leader column today. Hammond is not calling for continued membership of the single market — an idea he flirted with at the start. He is not even calling for permanent membership of the customs union, as advocated by Osborne. According to the FT he is proposing that Britain remains in the customs union for a transitional period.

So the destination remains the same: a “Global Britain” striking trade deals around the world. It’s just that now it may take a lot longer to get there. After all, remaining in the customs union permanently is to accept that Britain cannot have a trade policy independent of the European Commission. That would hardly be “taking back control."

Temporary membership of the customs union is a less obviously undemocratic outcome than continued membership of the single market, the so called “fax democracy” option which would mean that a major chunk of Britain’s economic policy is decided in Brussels without any input from the U.K.

Hammond is offering the possibility of genuine compromise, while going some way to taking the Northern Irish border problem off the table — at least for the time being.

It nods to May's dilemma — getting to a place acceptable to the soft Brexit Tories who now need to be listened to in a hung parliament, while not abandoning Brexit’s fundamental tenet, taking back control of economic and immigration policy, which is supported by the majority of her party. "There are more Leave headbangers than 'Remoaners,'” one well-connected former Tory special adviser told POLITICO. “If she tries to compromise on immigration she will get shot.”

All this would mean a long and far more gradual transition out of the EU. Or, of course, crashing out altogether, if compromise is just too hard to find. It is that scenario, however, which many senior Tories fear will sweep Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street and there’s nothing like a common enemy to forge unity.

This insight is from POLITICO's Brexit Files newsletter, a daily afternoon digest of the best coverage and analysis of Britain’s decision to leave the EU. Read today’s edition or subscribe here.