Although it was expected that May would lose the vote on her Brexit deal, the scale of her defeat wasn't. The reaction from Brussels was predictable, too: basically, big FU from Donald Tusk and Jean Claude Junker. And perhaps that's part of the explanation. Yes, Brussels always had the better hand in the negotiations, but the lesson here is that even if you hold all the cards, you don't have to play them.
By leaving the impression that the EU was going to make it as painful as possible, MPs reacted in an economically irrational but "behavioral-economically rational" way: "If we're going to get screwed either way, deal or no deal, we're not going to give Brussels the satisfaction of getting what it wants".
So now things are going to get interesting. If Britain does look like its going to crash out, it sends exactly the signal the Brussels elite is worried about; to the populists this looks like sticking it to the man, and will embolden other leavers. Brussels should offer a substantially better deal. If it holds the line, Britain will crash out and others will be tempted to follow.
The future of the European project has never looked more uncertain.
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