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Re (a) The DUP still seems to want a time limited backstop, the EU won't give them that. They really have talked themselves into a corner as they kept insisting on that from the start.
The cynical person in me says that even if they budge it won't matter, you can stick a rosetta on a goat in NI and they vote for the goat if it is the right colour rosetta. [clearly not everyone votes like that, but the tribalism is very strong] Because their voters definitely won't go to SF, and the race in most areas is between the DUP and SF...or there is no race at all.
They may lose Belfast South but that's it.
An extension with a GE may get rid of them, but I've not heard that one mentioned yet.
Bercow didn't rule it out of ever coming back, he just said it currently can't come back unchanged (for MV2 there had been big enough changes from the EU in the associated legal assurances to warrant a second attempt).
May could get her deal back in a number of ways (in order of increasing skullduggery):-
a) Get the EU to agree to some other changes to the associated legal assurances such that it would pass as being different enough to warrant a third vote. The EU might be up for this as it would help resolve some of the uncertainty. (The EU, despite saying they wouldn't make changes, will almost certainly make changes. They said they weren't making changes last time and then made some). It's unclear exactly how much and what has to change, which puts Bercow in a tricky position.
b) Have a vote in Parliament to change the conventions/rules/etc that two motions cannot be debated more than once in the same session. As Bercow himself said, if things don't change they just stay the same. Nothing procedurally wrong with this.
c) Prorogue Parliament so it is in a new session.
d) Some other as yet unknown loophole to force the motion onto the order papers with the same deal.
She's got to be pretty confident that the deal will pass (i.e. she's bunged enough money to the DUP/ERG MPs) otherwise she/it is completely fux0red.