THE DAY before the Brexit vote in Westminster, some on Fleet Street thought they had spied a last-minute get-out for Theresa May. The Sun, a right-wing tabloid, reported that Angela Merkel had offered the prime minister concessions on the Brexit deal in a phone call the day before. The report turned out to be incorrect. A German government spokesman said that the chancellor had made "no assurances" going beyond the deal sealed between Mrs May and the European Council in November. It was just the latest instance of the British press's habit of seeing the German government as a deus ex machina that will make a crucial intervention in the closing acts of the Brexit drama.
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