For Theresa May, the fourth time was the charm; her deal passed by a slim two votes, as the majority of the Brexiteers came home, and a few Labour dissenters broke ranks and voted yes. More exhausted than triumphant, she called for unity and reconciliation. In the same vein, Corbyn demanded that Labour rally around him, as he looked forward to a general election that he could fight on his favorite issues of austerity and runaway capitalism.
But for the two of them, it was far too late. May’s “accomplishment” had been to jam a solution that 75 percent of the country rejected down Parliament’s throat. The wounds from that were too deep, and too fresh, to ignore. The ERG demanded, and got, her resignation in short order. Having disregarded the strong preference of his party for a second referendum, and staring at a huge deficit in the polls, Corbyn was forced to follow suit a few months later.
The EU was disgusted by the whole affair, and not disposed to make the new government’s life any easier than necessary during the negotiations on the trade agreement. There was discussion on the UK side of ending the negotiations and simply living with WTO standards. Nothing, it seemed, had really changed.