Brussels will blink first — as they don’t want Jeremy Corbyn in No10 either

THERESA MAY flies to Austria this week on a desperate mission.

Her task is to sell her botched Chequers deal on Brexit to 27 EU leaders who think it is rubbish.

Her half-in, half-out formula has been trashed by Tories, Labour and even by Brussels.

Nobody likes it. Nobody wants it.

But this self-described “bloody difficult woman” believes she alone can ram it through.

Either she knows something nobody else does . . . or her fabled “polished turd” is about to hit the fan.

On tonight’s BBC’s Panorama, Mrs May spells out the formula she thinks propelled her to the top: “You bide your time and you are bloody difficult when it really matters.”

Others fear a different characteristic has defined her political career, especially as Home Secretary.

“She is mulishly stubborn,” says a former ally.

“Once she digs her heels in, nothing can shift her — right or wrong.”

They fear she will stick defiantly to her half-baked plan until she runs out of road and is forced to choose between an EU fudge or defeat in the House of Commons.

The Chequers deal is flawed by the fantasy we can follow an EU rule book on free trade and regulation while reserving the right to duck and dive.

Outside Cabinet, Tories on all sides — Brexiteers and Remainers — insist it is unworkable.

“It fails to take back control of our laws, borders, money and trade,” writes ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith.

“We would be out of Europe yet still run by Europe.”

EU negotiator Michel Barnier fears it endangers the whole EU project, which is already threatened by tensions over mass immigration, the Euro and jobless school leavers.

Special treatment for the UK would instantly trigger demands from other member states for their own tailor-made deals, unravelling the drive for ever-closer union.

Mrs May claims there is no alternative to Chequers.

But there has to be — and Britain is already working on it.

Despite Chancellor Phil Hammond’s blundering interference, preparations for a clean break are in train, covering everything from free trade to the vexed border with Northern Ireland.

It may be pitched as a last-ditch option, only to be deployed in an emergency.

But since Chequers is universally seen as a non-starter, free trade automatically becomes the only viable plan on the UK table.

New Brexit minister, karate black belt and rising star Dominic Raab, is making this vividly clear in Brussels.

He alarmed Downing Street by threatening to withhold the EU’s £40billion ransom if they push us too far.

And he has told Barnier to do his own dirty work and impose a border in the Irish Sea if he dares.

This is music to the ears of Tory MPs who desperately yearn to see some fighting spirit.

They hope against hope Mrs May secretly has a cunning plan, ready to roll out at the right moment as she suggests, calling Barnier’s bluff.

But there is another red card on the table, face up and flashing danger to our EU neighbours.

Do they want to humiliate the PM to the point where she is defeated in Parliament and pushed into a second catastrophic election?

EU leaders can read the polls which put Labour in front.

They will also be horrified to see ex-Tory vice-chairman Jeffrey Archer unhelpfully saying he would vote for Corbyn if he were a Northerner.

And we should all be alarmed by David Cameron’s Goldman Sachs-trained Treasury minister, Jim O’Neill, saying: “I find myself struggling to be that scared by the prospect of a Corbyn government.”

The EC has enough on its plate with the growing explosion of anti-Brussels populism across Europe. The last thing it wants any time soon is a hard-left Labour government led by lifelong EU-haters Jeremy Corbyn and Marxist Chancellor John McDonnell.

It might be the one bargaining chip that makes Michel Barnier blink first.