Brexiters have racked up the victories but no one wants to admit it

“Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan,” an Italian diplomat noted in the 1940s. Yet, as with so much Brexit has touched, that wisdom has been turned on its head.

The draft political declaration of the UK and EU’s future trading relationship should have been a cause for celebration for Conservative Brexiters.

Chequers has, as many of them demanded, been chucked.

There is no mention of a ‘common rulebook’, a policy which even some Remainers opposed, as the UK will now consider where to put itself on the spectrum of alignment with EU regulations.

The maximum facilitation arrangement for customs checks, which relies on technological developments, has been brought back to life – another win for the Brexiters.

Free movement of people from the EU, an issue which, like it or not, motivated many to vote Leave in 2016, will come to an end.

The UK will be able to negotiate its own fishing deal with the EU after Brexit, something which has become a cause celebre for people who wouldn’t know the difference between a cod and a pollock if it was served to them in batter.

Indeed, while the fishing industry, which represents 0.12 per cent of UK GDP, was repeatedly mentioned in the Commons yesterday, it took 45 minutes for the services sector – 80 per cent of the economy – to get a mention.

Yet no Brexiter wants to claim any of these victories. Some, such as Boris Johnson and David Davis, even resigned in protest at plans which have now been shelved.

Theresa May is playing into their hands. Instead of owning the fact she has made concessions after listening to her backbenchers, and then imploring them to do the same, she insists nothing has changed.

It echoes a mistake she made at the very beginning of the Brexit talks, when she accepted the EU's sequencing of negotiations without acknowledging the concession.

In both situations, owning the concessions would enable her to build up political capital she could spend during the crunch Brexit vote in parliament.

It could help lead her to victory. But like the Brexiters, she seems unwilling to pick up the prize.