British Prime Minister Theresa May has survived the vote of confidence held by members of the Parliamentary Conservative Party. As yesterday progressed it became increasingly obvious that it was likely that Mrs May would survive as Leader and Prime Minister. The prospect of a leadership campaign at such a crucial time nationally and politically and the damage that it may do, probably galvanised many who may have wavered over supporting Mrs May to vote for her as the least damaging option.

However, this win by 200 to 117 for Mrs May isn’t a resounding one. Mrs May stays on as PM but as a bit of a ‘Zombie’ PM. She has had to publicly declare that she will not lead the party into the next General Election which must have been a act of extreme humiliation for her. She is currently in the position where she needs greater concessions from Brussels in order to get her currently very bad EU deal through the House of Commons. This hopefully will make concessions more likely. If she can get the required concessions then her deal may get through the Commons, if not who knows what may happen. We could be looking at a House of Commons vote of confidence, which is what the Labour Party seems to want followed by a General Election if she loses. Labour smell blood in the water here because of the PM’s unpopularity in her own party and in the country and are playing this for party political ends. As much as I despise the way that Theresa May has handled Brexit, I find the prospect of Corbynite Labour taking charge of this issue extremely frightening. Although Theresa May’s Brexit is bad, Corbyn’s could be much worse.

This crisis for Theresa May is I’m afraid in large part of her own making. By not instructing the Civil Service to prepare for a ‘no deal’ scenario and insisting that a deal would be needed, she’s been mugged off by Brussels into taking a deal that is not only expensive, but ties us to the EU for longer than necessary. It is possible that many of her current problems could have been avoided if planning and preparation for a ‘no deal’ Brexit had taken place at the same time as deal negotiations. It may have concentrated the minds of those in Brussels to know that even whilst the UK was negotiating, the UK Government was preparing for an alternative. Captive markets where the customer has few or no other alternatives for goods are often exploitative ones and by not preparing a ‘no deal’ plan, Mrs May became the EU’s captive market for a deal.

Theresa May is in a very unenviable political position. She only has the support of two thirds of her own Parliamentary party and as Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg said last night, much of that vote is Mrs May’s ‘payroll’ vote of ministers and junior ministers etc. Because of the qualified support that she has in the Party she has to hurry to do better on Brexit and to get the significant number of rebels back on side. There are also going to be political vultures circling over Number Ten jockeying for position for when the inevitable leadership election occurs sometime before the next scheduled General Election.

Mrs May is, to recall and amend an old political phrase originally coined by former Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont, in office, but not in as much power as she needs to do what she wants without severe constraints. She is a politically dead woman walking.