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Opinion
Therese Raphael

The Biggest Brexit Loser This Time Wasn’t May

Her party’s euroskeptic wing overplayed its hand and is now faced with the prospect of Britain not leaving at all or a softer departure.

When the music stopped.

When the music stopped.

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Britain may or may not have taken a small step closer to exiting the European Union on Wednesday night. Who can tell? But it took a giant leap away from the vision that hard-line Brexiters have been advocating.

In fact, March 27 could go down as the day that this group’s spell over the Conservative Party was finally broken. It requires a suspension of reasonable disbelief, however, to suggest Theresa May foresaw or even planned it this way.