WHO is really running the country, the SNP’s Ian Blackford asked the Prime Minister yesterday. Is it Theresa May or DUP leader Arlene Foster?

The SNP’s Westminster leader challenged May as she came to Parliament to boast of the Brexit deal reached at the last minute four days ago.

The draft agreement hammered out by the Tory Government has approval from Brussels, Dublin and Belfast, which should permission will be given for trade negotiations to start.

May tried to tell MPs the rushed deal was “good news” for Leavers and Remainers alike.

She said: “This is good news for people who voted leave, who were worried that we were so bogged down in tortuous negotiations that it was never going to happen, and it is good news for people who voted to remain, who were worried that we would crash out without a deal.

“We are going to leave, but we will do so in a smooth and orderly way, securing a new deep and special partnership with our friends while taking back control of our borders, money and laws. That is my mission. That is this Government’s mission. On Friday, we took a big step towards achieving it.”

The deal, she said, would mean a hard border on the island of Ireland would be avoided, the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU would be protected, and there would be a “fair settlement” in the so-called divorce bill.

May insisted, however, that it would also mean the “whole of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland” will leave the EU customs union and the single market.

She added: “Nothing in the agreement I have reached alters that fundamental fact.”

Unusually for May, she had the support of almost all of her own MPs.

The Tory leader won praise from Europhiles Ken Clarke and Anna Soubry and from prominent Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith. That means she might still be Prime Minister at the end of 2017, a prospect that looked seriously unlikely last week.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said May had only barely “scraped through phase one of the negotiations after 18 months, two months later than planned”.

Blackford said the negotiations last week had been “humiliating” for Britain. “The Prime Minister was forced out of the original deal by the DUP, and had to rush back to London. The Government had to rewrite the agreement so as to gain the DUP’s approval. We really have to wonder who is running the UK: is it Arlene Foster or [May].”

Blackford said the phase two negotiations will be “significantly tougher” and that it will be “essential that all governments across the UK are fully involved in the negotiations.

“That is something that has not happened to this point,” he added. “Let me be clear: any special arrangements for Northern Ireland must now be available to all nations of the UK.

“The SNP will continue to speak with one loud and clear voice. The Prime Minister must commit today to keeping the UK in the single market and the customs union; to do otherwise would be catastrophic for jobs, workers’ rights, people’s incomes and living standards.”

May did not make that commitment. She said: “Northern Ireland is, of course, in a different position from Scotland; it is the only part of the UK that has a land border with a country that will remain in the European Union, and it is already the case that there are a number of unique and specific solutions that pertain to the island of Ireland.”

May seemed to suggest terms of a future trade deal would be would be finalised by next autumn. MPs will continue the debate and vote on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill today.

Scottish Brexit Minister Michael Russell will attend latest meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations before that debate.

Speaking in advance of the meeting, Russell warned that in its current, unamended state, the Scottish Government could not act ask MSPs to give their consent to the Bill when it comes to Holyrood.”