The rejection of the European Union withdrawal agreement by the UK House of Commons last week leaves the rest of Europe as baffled as it has been since the 2016 Brexit referendum. “We’re still in search of answers to two basic questions,” said one EU policymaker. “Who’s in charge in London, and what does the UK want?”

The size of Theresa May’s defeat has given a new intensity to the first of these questions. “She loses by 50 votes, she’s a hard-fighting prime minister. She loses by 230, she’s toast. Two-thirds of MPs voted against her on a historic piece of legislation,” said the same EU official.