Johnson’s Brexit is in sight. But he’ll still have to make concessions to parliament | Martin Kettle

Tuesday night’s chaotic votes show Johnson is wrong to berate MPs – in the end, they may deliver the deal he wants

It is almost as easy to lose your bearings amid the furious churning of the Brexit crisis as it is to get lost in the fog of battle. Fresh Brexit preoccupations succeed one another chaotically, and with dizzying speed.

Tuesday’s votes at Westminster exemplified this mercurial and even hysterical quality in our politics. A major victory for Boris Johnson on his EU withdrawal agreement bill was instantly followed by a defeat on the tight timetable for debating it. Within seconds, the talk was of an entirely new subject: a general election.

The risk is that parliament could decide to finish the job on terms that would blow the majority for a deal wide apart

Related: Why Labour's election reluctance goes beyond no-deal Brexit fears

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