Theresa May and her third-time-lucky strategy

It would be quite extraordinary, historically so, if Theresa May succeeds in what she is trying to do. She is actually going to put her Brexit deal, without much if any change to it, before the House of Commons for a third time. She has a conviction that if put to the House a third time, with literally a few days left before Brexit Day March 29, MPs who had previously rejected it will change their minds because of the approaching deadline. Never mind that last night's vote gave Mrs May permission to ask the EU for an extension to the date of about three months. With a little bit of legal jargon here and a touch of blackmail there, Mrs May hopes she will finally get approval. And oh my God she just may be right. Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, is key to this bizarre strategy. He totally bungled his legal advice this week by informing the House that the minor additions Mrs May had managed to get from the EU relating to the Irish backstop arrangement would only marginally reduce the risk of the UK being stuck in the EU customs union for ever. He took all night to come up with that judgment, knowing, surely, that it would be about as much help to Mrs May as a custard pie thrown in her face. So having realised his oops oops mistake Geoffrey Cox has been running around tryng to think of another form of words which might have the opposite effect in the House. This sounds like some sort of devilish sleight of hand stuff verging on the very dodgy. But according to all the huffing and puffing going on, Cox has come up with a wizard idea, something to do with quoting the Vienna Convention under which it would be deemed unfair for the UK to be forced to stay in the EU customs union against its will. Sounds absolutely daft and irrelevant to the actual negotiations going on but apparently there are serious people who think this is a timely wheeze. And, more important, Cox's desperate manoevre seems to be impressing the stoney-faced members of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party and even some Tory Brexiteers. So when the May Brexit deal comes up for a third attempt next week, the Vienna Convention might bring her the success she has been waiting for for nearly three years. Who would believe it! Geoffrey Cox, shall we call him Humpty Dumpty, fell off the wall and got shattered into little bits this week but next week he might just clamber back to the top of the wall all freshly put together again.