Theresa May's Brexit Brinkmanship

How Theresa May pushed past defeat and carried on

- Tim Ross, Kitty Donaldson, and Alex Morales

Deep inside the oak-and-stone interior of Parliament, surrounded by dusty, leather-bound volumes of parliamentary records, Theresa May waited quietly for her fate. At 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 15, after almost two years of negotiations, the prime minister had finally put her Brexit deal to a vote in the House of Commons for members to accept or reject.

Some 201 of May’s allies came out in favor of the deal. But she was forced to watch as more than 430 others—including people she’d regarded as loyal—voted against it. The 230-vote defeat shocked even pessimists on her team. It was the worst loss for a British government in more than 100 years.

Even before the result was announced, some of May’s friends were in tears at the scale of the unfolding disaster. They knew her career was on the line—and the country’s economic stability in grave peril—as the prospect of leaving the European Union without an agreement loomed. Although clearly shaken, the prime minister was the calmest person in the room, consoling her distraught colleagues.

The meticulous May takes nothing for granted—even the certainty of losing an unwinnable vote. She had a victory speech prepared if, somehow, she defied the odds. It’s a measure of the 62-year-old Conservative Party leader’s addiction to methodical preparation that she was as ready for an unlikely triumph as she was for the inevitable failure.