WELL, at least he gave us something new to bicker about for 24 hours. John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, is insufferably pompous and long-winded, but his lecturing the Government on Erskine May was a great piece of political theatre.

It means very little because, while it’s clearly out of order for the Government to put the same motion to Parliament again and again, there are many ways in which Theresa May’s deal can be repackaged – such as formally proposing a change to the date of Article 50, which is currently the law. And if that doesn’t work, she can put a motion to suspend standing orders.

Of course, she needs a majority for that to work and she still hasn’t got one. The Brexit press seemed to believe that the Bercow Block was a blow in favour of Remain, but it was equally welcomed by hard Brexiters like Sir Bill Cash and Owen Paterson. Indeed, not having to put a third meaningful vote – MV3– this week arguably played into the Government’s hands too by giving the Prime Minister an excuse not to subject her deal to a third, humiliating defeat.

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You get the impression from listening to all parties to this parliamentary permashambles that they’d all really rather prefer to stop voting altogether. A kind of fatalism has descended. MPs are exhausted with the effort of having to find new ways to say what they don’t want. The Government has started to talk in riddles, and Mrs May has lost her voice altogether. Brussels is finding our quaint parliamentary antics amusing, like a rerun of Monty Python. Angela Merkel and Mrs May seem agreed now that the best thing to do is suspend Article 50, so that everyone can continue doing nothing for another three months or even two years.

Mind you, there have been some significant developments beneath the surface non-events. Labour has finally started talking with the SNP, LibDems and supporters of a Norway Plus option. This will at least force Jeremy Corbyn to find new ways of not agreeing with them. There’s little difference between the European Economic Area option and his idea of a permanent customs union combined with regulatory alignment with the single market. But if there is a way to prevent consensus breaking out across parties, no doubt they’ll find one.

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All the parties have done their best to prevent Parliament coming together behind the one option most MPs agree on. They all want to be able to blame each for whatever happens after Brexit Day. The SNP supported the single market/EEA option in two white papers and one General Election manifesto, but is now focused on a second referendum.

For their part, many Tory and Labour Brexiters – the more sentient ones – are getting seriously worried that, by continuing to reject Mrs May’s deal, they may lose Brexit altogether. This is an entirely rational fear. About the only thing the Commons has managed to agree upon is that it doesn’t want a no-deal Brexit. Conservative websites like Guido Fawkes and Conservative Home are humming with arguments from Brexiters, like the former minister, Esther McVey, saying that Mrs May’s deal may be worse than remaining in the European Union, but they’ll vote for it anyway. Though a hard core of Moggists will never submit.

The Commons has also said that it doesn’t want a repeat referendum on Brexit – at least that was the overwhelming result of last week’s People’s Vote amendment. I still haven’t heard a convincing argument for why most Remainers refused to vote for this proposal, even though it came from the Independent Group of Labour rebels. It will be hard, following Mr Bercow’s ruling on not putting repeat questions to the Commons, to find another direct way of proposing it next week.

Instead, we have the Kyle/Wilson amendment from two Labour MPs who want their party to vote for Mrs May’s deal on the condition that it is put to a “confirmation ballot” of the people in a referendum. There are two problems with this. First, it means Labour actually voting for a deal that it has repeatedly said is an abomination, threat to jobs, undemocratic and so on; and second, there is no guarantee that the referendum would come out the right way.

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I don’t see how a repeat referendum could exclude No Deal, since that is what many people thought they were voting for in 2016. Labour might want its preferred option on the ballot too. This could leave us with a complex multi-option referendum, in which no one would win or lose convincingly. It would also mean the removal of Mrs May, since she has said repeatedly that she will never accept a referendum.

It could come to that. It’s an open secret that the Government whips have been suggesting to Brexit MPs that if they back Mrs May next week they can also sack her at the same time. For many, this must be tempting. Yes, it would mean supporting a deal they loathe, but it would perhaps mean getting Boris Johnson into Downing Street. Incomprehensible though it may be, the former London Mayor is still extremely popular among the Tory membership. And he’s recently cut his hair to show that he isn’t a wild child any more.

The Brexit ultras could persuade themselves that having Mr Johnson in charge,or Michael Gove or Dominic Raab, would mean that the future negotiations on the Political Declaration – that is, the post-Brexit trading relationship with the EU – could lead to Britain ending up with a minimalist Canada-style free trade deal after two years. The Irish backstop would of course remain an obstacle. But a British PM who doesn’t care about Britain’s image in the diplomatic world, could always resort to the so-called Vienna principle that no country can be held in a treaty indefinitely without its agreement. Just walk.

Come to think of it, the prospect of Boris Johnson in No 10 might be the one thing that forces Labour and mainstream Tory MPs to unite in extremis behind Mrs May’s deal. As one of them put it: squeaky bottom time is nigh. MV3 may still pass into law next week, as MPs gaze into the abyss.