With only 10 days at her disposal, it’s safe to say it’s not looking good for Theresa May’s Brexit deal

Getting the withdrawal agreement through parliament will be a tall order; and even if she manages somehow to do that, it will only herald greater challenges to come

With 82 days to go until the Brexit deadline bell strikes, the prime minister has returned from her Christmas break insisting that MPs will be given a meaningful vote on her deal in the next 10 days. 15 or 16 January appears the most likely date.

Theresa May’s confirmation that a division will indeed take place follows days of speculation that there might be a further delay, with sources indicating that the parliamentary maths is still not in the PM’s favour.

Attempts at persuasion over the holiday seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

Certainly there is a school of thinking among some Brexiteers that the closer we get to 29 March, the more likely MPs are to vote Ms May’s deal through – for fear of a cliff-edge departure. Others maintain that a vote against the deal will force the hand of the EU, since it too would prefer to avoid a no-deal exit.

Yet as European diplomats have made clear to The Independent, there is no real prospect of further substantive changes to the present agreement. And the truth is, while the hardest of Brexits would certainly hurt the EU, the economic damage would be nothing compared to that suffered by the UK. It is wishful thinking to imagine that a revised deal is going to miraculously appear, however finely we cut things.

So, what happens if MPs vote the prime minister’s deal down? Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, Ms May refused to rule out the possibility that she will simply call for another vote, and another until she gets the result she wants.

Actually, while it seems entirely plausible that a close loss could be followed by a second vote on the deal, if the Commons is very clearly against it at the first attempt, the prime minister is likely to accept that no other verdict will be forthcoming. Then, as she has acknowledged herself, we will be in uncharted territory – not that we aren’t there already.

Both the prime minister and her critics agree that in such a scenario, parliament – rather than the government – may need to take the tiller. But there will be little room for manoeuvre then, with just over two months until D-Day. Certainly the possibility of a second referendum will become very real indeed; although if the EU refuse to extend the deadline for departure (pending the outcome of a new public poll), there will be further heated debates about Article 50 should be withdrawn unilaterally.

The mess is not getting any prettier with the passage of time.

If anything, the polarisation of opinion about the consequences of no deal is becoming more acute. Hardline Brexiteers like Peter Bone maintain the drop from the cliff-edge is much lower than the vast majority of economists say. Meanwhile, a cross-party group of MPs are seeking to amend the upcoming Finance Bill to make no deal a practical impossibility.

Ms May might be hoping that the announcement on Monday of her 10-year plan for the NHS will provide a positive headline or two. But public faith in the health service is limited: it will take more than promises of future action to change that.

What’s more, the present uncertainty over Brexit means that almost all policy proposals are taken with a pinch of salt – and that will be so until the UK’s departure has been confirmed; or has been ruled out in the event of a second referendum returning a vote for remain.

The prime minister has a week and a half to save her Brexit deal. It will be a tall order; and even if she manages somehow to get her deal through parliament, that will only herald greater challenges to come, not least in working out a future trading relationship with the EU.

If, as expected, MPs reject the PM’s best efforts, we will back to square one. But at least then the case for the public to the given a Final Say will surely be unanswerable.