The story of the rebel leader.

Yesterday was the day of the repeat of the meaningful vote, vote. What seemed like it was going to be a defining moment for May and Brexit, turned out to be something of a triumph for her, as 12 of the rebels, including Dominic Grieve failed to rebel, after there was another last minute fudge on the wording of a Ministerial Statement.

I have no idea what this means, who has won, who lost, or when push comes to shove, whether Brexit will be stopped or not.

But the HoC had the chance to assert it's authority over the executive, and bottled it. Again.

It is possible that it will come down to a matter of Constitutional Law when come next February whether Parliament can or will instruct the Government to change course, policy. Or not.

The one thing I take from this, almost all the Government's energy has been spent for the last three weeks or so, on internal strife, negotiating with it's own back benchers, understanding their position and trying to move heaven and earth to accommodate those concerns to allow legislation to be passed. Had May and co spent as much effort and resources in understanding and accommodating the EU's concerns, then Brexit would be a lot less traumatic, and maybe things would look less bleak.

The Europhiles have capitulated at every turn, and the Brexiteers have not. So, extrapolating this forward, the Brexiteers will puch for a chaotic Brexit, leaving the EU with no formal agreement on trade, borders, rights, tax, fissile material, aviation, transport, cross-border crime coordination, and so on, relying on good will, or just muddling through.

The other alternative, is that in February, if there is no deal forthcoming, Parliament could pass a no confidence vote in May and bring down the Government, six weeks before Brexit.

If this thought isn't daft enough, it fails to take into account that when it came down to standing up for democracy, the Europhiles and rebels just folded. So they probably wouldn't vote against the Government either.

And all the while, Government has not been thinking about the NI-Irish border, trade, customs, tax and the rest of stuff that needs to be sorted, and if that were not bad enough, Parliament is about to go into recess, then into Conference season, meaning very little will be able to be discussed until october.