LONDON — Theresa May is back at work after the holidays — but, as the British prime minister is fond of saying, nothing has changed.

May left Westminster in December assuring MPs she was working on new, last minute add-ons to the Brexit deal that the U.K. parliament is due to ratify in two weeks’ time, ahead of the country’s scheduled legal exit from the EU in just 12 weeks.

Having pulled the vote once already, May is now in the last-chance saloon. She has spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and is expected to make more diplomatic calls to her European counterparts ahead of the recommencement of parliamentary debate on her deal next week.

But Brussels says no substantial renegotiation is even taking place, and key Brexit-supporting MPs, including those of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party, which props up her government, remain unconvinced.

It is fear of no deal, May seems to have calculated, that is her best card.

If cosmetic changes to her deal don’t change minds, May’s only hope is persuading MPs on either side of the Brexit divide to back her deal for fear of the alternatives — “no deal, or no Brexit,” as she puts it. “No Brexit” would require a second referendum which, despite increased momentum behind the idea, is still not backed by the leadership of either of the two main parties.

So it is fear of no deal, May seems to have calculated, that is her best card, and one that she and her ministers will talk up incessantly between now and the vote planned for the week beginning January 14.

Media blitz

Stephen Barclay, May’s third Brexit secretary, announced Thursday that a public information campaign on social media and radio would be launched next Tuesday to prepare the British public for a no-deal exit from the European Union.

The U.K.’s neighbors are also making no-deal contingencies an ever-greater priority. Ireland’s agriculture minister, Michael Creed, told the Irish Independent hundreds of millions of euros would be sought in aid from the EU were Ireland faced with a no-deal scenario. The country, which sends 15 percent of its exports to the U.K., would face a serious economic hit from new trade barriers.

But is talk of no deal a bluff? Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, on a New Year visit to Singapore and Malaysia, admitted Wednesday the economic dislocation of no deal is not something any government would “willingly” impose on itself.

May could step back from the cliff edge at any time by asking the EU27 for an extension of the Article 50 notice or by revoking it temporarily, and even if she doesn’t, there is a majority in parliament that would try to stop a no-deal Brexit if May’s deal is rejected. But precisely how they would do it is not clear and some constitutional experts are skeptical.

May is hoping MPs simply won't risk it, but her former Brexit Secretary David Davis for one is calling her bluff. Giving no indication he has shifted in his opposition to her deal, he suggested in the Daily Telegraph that heading down the no-deal path would be no bad thing, and would bring the EU back to the negotiating table.

"The more we prepare to leave the EU without a deal, the more likely a good deal becomes," he said.

DUP says no (again)

Davis and his Brexiteer allies are just one group in a wide spectrum of opinion in the House of Commons that are still saying they will vote against May's deal.

But it is they and the 10 MPs of the Democratic Unionist Party — who stand opposed to the deal’s “backstop” clause for avoiding an economic border on the island of Ireland by keeping the U.K. inside a customs union with the EU — who represent her best hope for making up the numbers in favor.

May has sought further “assurances” from the EU, as she obliquely puts it, that the backstop — were it needed — would not be permanent. “Discussions” were held over Christmas, Hunt said Wednesday, expressing the hope that his boss would “find a way” of getting her deal through parliament.

The EU, for its part, has not budged from its position that no meaningful renegotiation of the Withdrawal Agreement struck in November can take place.

A European Commission spokesperson said Thursday that “no further meetings are foreseen between the Commission's negotiators and the U.K. negotiators” and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, after speaking with Merkel, reiterated to reporters in Dublin that the EU could give “no explanation, guarantee or clarification” on the backstop that contradicts or “renders inoperable” the Withdrawal Agreement.

May, therefore, seemed to have little to show senior DUP lawmakers, whom she met Thursday.

Nigel Dodds, the DUP’s deputy leader, said the party’s “principled objections” to May’s deal remain.

“The Withdrawal Agreement, as currently proposed, flies in the face of the government’s commitments on Northern Ireland as we leave the EU,” he said Thursday afternoon, after meeting May for lunch alongside fellow DUP MP Sammy Wilson and MEP Diane Dodds.