AMID all the arcane parliamentary protocol, the Bercow Brexit row was about control and who has it.

In light of a second lost Commons vote in 24 hours, and in anticipation of another defeat for the PM next Tuesday, it seems clear the pendulum of power has swung decisively in Parliament’s favour.

Of course, we all know the Speaker is a Remainer – there is that famous family car sticker - and, as he heads towards the red benches this summer, wants to entrench his legacy of championing Parliament in its never-ending tussle with Government.

Yesterday was the most acrimonious clash to date as Mr Bercow cocked a snook at embattled Theresa May and her colleagues to put Parliament first even if he had to break parliamentary convention and defy the advice of his legal advisors to do so.

After initially suggesting he was simply trying to do the right thing in allowing MPs to amend a normally dusty and unremarkable business motion, he then let the cat out of the bag.

In the face of shaking ministerial heads and Tory heckles, the Speaker declared: “If we were guided only by precedent, manifestly nothing in our procedures would ever change. Things do change. I have made an honest judgement. If people want to vote against the amendment, they can, and if they want to vote for it, they can.”

As the SNP’s Pete Wishart noted earlier during PMQs, the PM’s deal was the “deadest dodo” and when she puts it to the vote next week there will be conclusive proof it is, as Monty Python might have it, no more and has ceased to be.

But the Brexit psychodrama will then take a new twist.

David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, helpfully suggested yesterday that, to mix metaphors, having flogged a dead horse and finally voted to kill off the old nag, MPs would reflect on their mistake and be given a second chance to vote on the same deal in the hope, no doubt, that a parliamentary kiss of life will be given and the Brexit horse would spring miraculously back to life.

And if this week’s row over procedure were not enough, it could happen all over again next week.

When MPs are asked to consider the PM’s Plan B, whatever it turns out to be, the Speaker will again be in charge and no doubt rule that MPs can amend the proposal. This will mean that a raft of indicative votes on various options could be held.

In the first instance at least, the likeliest would be to put back Brexit Day by extending Article 50 given Labour’s Keir Starmer yesterday moved Labour’s position by suggesting March 29, given all the chaos, was looking a mite untenable.

This would enrage the Brexiteers, who would announce it was the end of democracy as we knew it. But as one backbencher perceptibly noted while there is a majority among MPs for what they do not want – a no-deal – there is not a majority for what they do want.

Dare I suggest we could be in 2003 territory when the House of Lords, faced with a range of reform options to vote on from making the second chamber wholly or partially elected to wholly or partially nominated, rejected all of them.

Democracy is a wonderful thing.