Over the last few weeks it has appeared impossible for anyone to find a way through the Brexit morass. Plan after plan is put forward and then dropped. The EU appears to be at its most intransigent. Theresa May at her most obdurate, failing to recognise the real pickle she's in. In seven day's time she will reach another High Noon in the House of Commons. With the ERG becoming increasingly restless it has seemed there is way the Prime Minister can avoid another humiliating defeat. And yet...
This morning I feel more optimistic. Steve Baker, one of the ERG's leading lights, gave a positively statesmanlike interview to Newsnight last night in which he said he felt that a meeeting at Number Ten had gone well and a way through could be found.
Sniffing the political air, I sense that it is the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox who might well have found a way of putting a legal compromise on the Irish backstop to the European Commission which they could accept - and so could the ERG. It's known as the 'Cox Codpiece'.
Geoffrey Cox is one of the few ministers to have the trust of both sides of the Brexit debate.
Could it be Geoffrey Cox who saves Theresa May's skin, gets Brexit through the Commons and ensures we leave the EU on 29th March?
If he is seen to be the architect of an unlikely parliamentary win on Wednesday next week, and plays a key role over the next 37 days and it all goes well, Geoffrey Cox would be in a very powerful political position. A very powerful position indeed... If you get my drift.
