From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the Daily.

Today, after months of trying and failing to put forward a deal for how the UK could leave

the European Union, Theresa May had one final thing to offer. herself.

It's Monday April 1.

Thank you for calling the London Office of the New York Times.

Hello. Oh, hello. How are you, Ellen? I'm great. I'm so sorry that we've had technical

difficulties this morning. Not to worry. It wouldn't be the Daily if we didn't have a little

technical difficulty. Okay, so here we go, Ellen. Tell me when you are ready. Ready. Okay.

Ellen Berry is a Times correspondent in London. So last Wednesday, in the middle of the day,

Theresa May called her party members to Committee Room 14, which is a sort of big committee room

somewhere in the bowels of Westminster Palace. It was quite unclear what this was about. There

was loads of speculation that she would perhaps fire her chief negotiator for Brexit, who is

widely despised by right-wingers in her party. The world's cameras are trained on the British

Parliament waiting for a Brexit breakthrough. For many, the workings of this house appear increasingly

mystifying, but after months of Brexit paralysis, could things be starting to move?

So at five o'clock, conservative lawmakers began crowding into this room, and it was by all accounts

stifling and completely packed. The Minister for International Development couldn't even get in

there and was watching through the keyhole. Wow. And it is traditional in these gatherings that when

the Prime Minister comes in, people bang on the tables with their hands. It's kind of like a tribal drum beat.

And so then the room went silent. The door closed, the room went silent, and what was said in there

was said only to each other. But meetings like this leak like saves and in a closed meeting with

conservative MPs, Theresa May said she's prepared to make the ultimate move. Gradually, the outside

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