Theresa May was humiliated once again by EU leaders on Thursday night as her attempts to improve her Brexit deal were thrown back in her face.

Mrs May went to Brussels to ask the European Council to help her rescue the Brexit deal – and her own career – by renegotiating the politically poisonous Northern Ireland backstop.

But instead of winning concessions, her pitch to the 27 other EU leaders appeared to harden their stance against her, as they angrily accused her of putting the onus on them to come up with the solution, rather than providing one herself.

In a late night press conference, Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, berated Mrs May by saying it was time for the UK “to say what they want instead of asking us to say what we want”.

To make matters worse, the leaders’ statement at the end of a dinner in Brussels was significantly worse for Mrs May than a draft version circulated before she addressed her counterparts.