Theresa May has 24 hours to save her premiership

It has been another awful week for May – Jeremy Corbyn final has some skin in the Brexit game, her bungling foreign secretary Boris Johnson opened his trap again and even mild-mannered John Major stuck the boot in.

Major’s intevention is significant ahead of her big speech. The grandee – whose own time in Downing Street was ruined by in-fighting over Europe – called the government’s Brexit red lines ‘not only grand folly … also bad politics’. Ouch.

Speaking to the Creative Industries Federation he added: ‘Our negotiations, so far, have not always been sure-footed. Some agreements have been reached but, in many areas, only because the UK has given ground.’

And now the EU has demanded Northern Ireland is aligned with Brussels’ rules if no other solution can be found to avoid a hard border – this speech is make or break.