Parliament voted the Windsor Framework into law yesterday, by 515 to 29. Media commentators were bigging up a big "rebellion" beforehand, and were taken aback when it didn't materialise. Only 22 Tories voted against.
So why no rebellion? Two-thirds of the Tory party genuinely think the Windsor Framework is a good deal, it was better than anything they'd hoped to get. Of the 40 hard Brexiteer ERG members, more than half took the pragmatic view that it wasn't possible to negotiate anything better, and that the deal was good enough. Some of the people voting against the deal were not in the ERG, and did so for personal reasons - Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are struggling to come to terms with their own party brutally sacking them.
Above all Tory MPs were swayed by the positive response to the deal by voters in Northern Ireland. Here's an opinion poll carried out by the University of Liverpool of views in Northern Ireland:
Given that opposition was only 16.9%, and all communities support the Windsor Framework, the message from Northern Ireland was they thought it was a better deal that what they currently have. So Parliament voted it through.
