Whatever happens next, the nationalist right has lost the battle for Brexit

It is now nearly five months since May signed the EU-UK agreement on Brexit. Since then, the Conservative party’s rightwing nationalists have repeatedly tried to defeat the deal and to oust May. They have dominated the airwaves and won some famous victories along the way, but in the end, they have decisively lost the war. For the right, the aim was to bend the Tory party to their obsessional will. They have failed to do that. Instead they may have wrecked their party. Their aim too was to drive the UK out of the EU without a deal of the kind signed by May or any of the economic safeguards Labour and other opponents demand. That is not now going to happen. Wednesday’s agreement in Brussels makes that clear.