When Graham Brady announces Theresa May's political fate, Jubel breaks out in Committee Room 14 of the British Parliament. "The result of the vote is that the group trust in ... ..." He does not come further, the Tory MPs stand up, many applaud, knock on the tables.

It is a short moment of joy among the supporters of the Prime Minister. The party leader has passed the vote of no confidence. That is clear. But then Brady, chairman of the responsible committee, continues: For May, 200 conservatives voted. Against them 117. A murmur goes through the ranks.

117: These are far more than those MPs who are counted among the Brexit hardliners who have been making life difficult for months. Their number is sometimes estimated at 60, sometimes at 80. But now many others voted against May.

The hoped-for liberation for the Prime Minister is missing.

Vote postponed

At the end of November, the hardliners wanted to challenge the Brexiteers May. Led by ultra-conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg, they publicly called the Tories to revolt. But quickly they had to back down. The necessary 48 votes from the parliamentary group did not come together at first.

This changes two days after May's surprise announcement to postpone Tuesday's vote on her Brexit deal. On Wednesday morning, Brady said: There are enough applications, the same day the conservatives in the lower house to vote on May.

Dramatic hours follow in London.

Just now, the different groups and factions had adjusted to the fact that there is initially no decision in the Brexit final. Now they are taken by surprise again.

"I am ashamed"

Anna Soubry sits on a podium in a small room in the center of the city. She is one of the pioneers for a second referendum, a proeuropean. She rejects May's course, but she also does not want government chaos. She was ashamed on Monday to be a member of parliament, says Soubry. "Today I'm ashamed to be a conservative."

Another press conference, only a few meters ahead: David Davis, ex-Brexit minister and a potential candidate for May's succession, actually wants to talk about his idea for a new agreement with the EU. But most people in the room are interested in something completely different.

More than a hundred Tories have already put themselves on Twitter at this time behind May. Davis does not do that. He said he would make his support dependent on how the PM presented himself in the afternoon to the deputies.

At the table sits Arlene Foster, head of the Northern Irish DUP, Mays alliance partner. The national conservatives have been bickering for weeks against the agreements with the EU. Most recently, there were reports that Labor politicians, together with the DUP, may force May out of office. When asked, Foster avoids. "The question does not arise," she says.

In such moments it seems very clear: No matter how it ends with May and the Brexit - the alliance with the DUP should not be permanent.

In combat mode

The Prime Minister herself switches early in a kind of combat mode that day. In the morning, May steps outside her door on Downing Street. A mighty Christmas tree stands next to the lectern, almost surreal at this moment. "I'll face this vote with everything I have," says May. A change of leadership would jeopardize the country's future, she warns. A new prime minister would have to postpone Brexit - or even stop it.

This sets the tone for the day, the threat that everything will get worse when someone else takes power. May also uses this strategy in parliament, in the usual question and answer session in the lower house.

It will be a particularly aggressive performance, from both sides. May runs full attack against Labor, a message to their own people: Look, the enemy is sitting somewhere else. The opposition has "no plan, no idea," calls May, and she delivers "no Brexit". All that Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn wanted was chaos and harm to the economy.

For a moment, it even seems as if May no longer vote on the deal. There has already been a vote, she calls - the referendum in 2016. Corbyn is now raging, "absolutely unacceptable," he cries out to May.

Tactics do not work

But her tactic really does not work. A few hours later, she faces the Tory MP in the Parliament building. Politicians later describe the mood as very emotional. May draws her last trump card: she will no longer be the top candidate at the next election, she says. It is also a promise to those who quarrel with the Prime Minister.

Some in the round, it is said, would have cried at that moment. When David Davis steps out of the room, he says the Prime Minister made a "good speech".

Then the conservatives vote. The vote is secret, the parliamentarians must identify themselves individually.

In the end, May wins, she remains head of the Tories, she remains prime minister. For now.

The vote at the time of their maximum weakness also has something good: May's authority is already battered, potential successors have been warm for months, a part of the faction has forsworn her forever. But for a year now no one is allowed to ask a motion of no confidence against her.

No majority for agreement

But really strengthened May does not go into the further dispute over their Brexit deal. It still seems hard to imagine how she wants to get a majority for her agreement in the lower house. Especially if she can wrest only a few vague promises from Brussels.

Chancellor Philip Hammond had earlier said that one must "flush out the extremists". But the Brexit hardliners do not seem completely isolated this evening.

For May, it is now time to go ahead as planned: on Thursday and Friday, she wants to make a big appearance at the EU summit in Brussels, despite everything. At home, the impression is that the Prime Minister has done everything for a good Brexit deal.

By 21 January, Parliament will have to vote. This time really.