The PM went from chaos at the G7 to confusion over Brexit, via an apology for Grenfell

When Theresa May landed at Heathrow at 7am last Sunday, one of the most critical weeks since she became prime minister almost exactly two years ago had just begun.

The arcane nature of the wrangling over the precise way parliament can have a meaningful vote on a Brexit deal without actually binding the government’s hands can be misleading. It may look like a obscure trial by textual analysis. But it is being described as high noon for Brexit.

After the overnight flight from the near-farcical G7 summit in Quebec, May went straight to the Sunday church service in her Maidenhead constituency before sitting down to prepare for the week ahead.

The importance of the two days of votes on Lords amendments had been highlighted the previous week when Boris Johnson was recorded warning that Brexit would happen, but not necessarily in the right way.

“I am of the view it will be fine. [Brexit] will happen and I think it will be irreversible,” he was taped saying at a Conservative Way Forward dinner.

“The risk is it will not be the one we want and the risk is that we will end up in a sort of anteroom of the EU, with an orbit around the EU, in a customs union and to a large extent in the single market.”

The sense of an impending watershed lay behind some reports in the pro-Brexit press of plots to unseat the prime minister as soon as the withdrawal bill is on the statute book. Then the focus will be on shaping Britain’s future relations with the EU and the rest of the world. That is why a meaningful vote on the final deal is so critical.

In next Wednesday’s vote on the amendment, Brexiters believe May has offered enough to split the rebel camp. But neither faction knows for sure. The numbers on each side as well as the actual outcome will establish where the parliamentary majority lies.

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Brexit dominates May’s in-tray, but she wants her record to stand for more. One priority in the past few days has been to repair the self-inflicted damage from her fumbling response to the Grenfell Tower fire a year ago, in a week unlikely to be surpassed for awfulness. She signed off an article for the London Evening Standard apologising for getting it so wrong. It was published on the eve of the first anniversary.

On Monday she answered an hour of questioning from MPs on the G7 summit. Her closing sentiments could have applied as much as to the week ahead of her as to the summit. “This was a difficult summit with, at times, some very candid discussions, but the conclusion I draw is that it is only through continued dialogue that we can find ways to work together to resolve the challenges we face.”

On Tuesday, as the resignation of Dr Philip Lee, a junior justice minister, stoked speculation that she was facing a real prospect of defeat, May chaired cabinet. As soon as it ended, the first of two days of debates on the EU withdrawal bill began – including the amendment that Brexiters had set out to portray as an attempt to stop Brexit happening at all and frustrate the will of the people.

While Dominic Grieve, the rebels’ negotiator, publicly bargained in the chamber with the solicitor general, Robert Buckland, only a few feet away in her office behind the Speaker’s chair, May was desperately trying to fend off defeat by pledging further talks on the amendment.

May is inscrutable in meetings, her face impassive. It can be an effective device in the short term, allowing people to believe they have got what they want.

The MPs emerged confident that they had a deal on a meaningful vote. A government defeat was averted.

But as May returned to Downing Street to host a reception for Grenfell survivors, her official spokesman cast doubt on the concession the rebels had claimed. Nothing more than talks had been promised, he said.

It was not just the confusion over what might have been said that indicated the fragility of May’s position as she prepared for prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.

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That morning the Guardian reported that her Home Office legacy was being unpicked by her successor but one, Sajid Javid, and Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary. After eight years of nailed-down controls on visas for skilled workers, the ceiling on the number of visas available for doctors and nurses would be lifted.

Then on Friday, she abandoned two years of opposition to a substantial increase in spending on the NHS. She conceded an increase for the health service but in a further sign that she cannot always get her way in cabinet, the chancellor, Philip Hammond, has still not signed off on a final deal.

In a year when it has often seemed that things could not get worse, this has been a bruising week. She has succeeded in reversing all 15 of the Lords amendments but some victories came at a heavy cost. The meaningful vote will be back on Wednesday. This week’s losers now feel betrayed. Sarah Wollaston, one of a longstanding group of Tory rebels, is not alone in talking of betrayal and arguing that the bad faith makes it more likely that the government will be defeated.

“Goodwill has been very badly undermined,” she said on Friday. “However that matters far less than the final Brexit deal which will have a profound influence on people’s lives.”