Why Brexiters are quietly content with Theresa May's elephantine U-turn
If Theresa May has a genius, it is for turning days of history into hours of bathos.
Wednesday was supposed to be the moment when backbench MPs launched their coup to take control of the process of taking the UK out of the EU.
But it now looks as though the office of the prime minister will retain some of its traditional authority for a few weeks yet - thanks to the dramatic pirouette Mrs May performed on Tuesday by promising MPs a vote on 13 March to decide whether or not the UK will leave the EU without a deal on 29 March, and another vote on 14 March to approve a "short limited extension" to the UK's leaving date (so long as they vote against a no-deal Brexit).
"So many votes prime minister, you spoil us," as one Tory backbencher put it.
What does it all mean?
Well...
As I said on Tuesday means that - absent some unholy row in the coming few weeks between the UK and EU - it is certain that there will not be a no-deal Brexit on 29 March, because a clear majority of MPs would oppose that.
Second, it almost certainly means we won't be leaving the EU at all on that date, since it still remains highly improbable that the PM's Brexit deal - even reworked - will be approved by MPs on 12 March (the date she has pledged for the vote on her deal).
Third, probably a maximum of an additional three months have been won, either to negotiate a Brexit or to more adequately prepare for a no-deal Brexit. Or to put it another way, Brexit day has probably shifted from 29 March to 30 June.
Can you stand another three months of all these Brexit treats?
Final question. Who has really won?
Is it the 25-odd rebel ministers - the so-called Gaukward Squad, led by David Gauke, Amber Rudd and Greg Clark - who were threatening to resign if no-deal wasn't taken off the table?
Well they have certainly had an impact.
But truthfully if they've won this skirmish, in the battle with the ultra Brexiters of the European Research Group, they may paradoxically have weakened themselves in the epic war between them.
How so?
Well the ERG knew in their hearts that a no-deal Brexit on 29 March could have been very destructive both to the UK and their own reputations - because there has been inadequate contingency planning for it.
But now they can kill the PM's deal on 12 March with less anguish about the consequences, because the PM has told them that there will be another three months either for the PM to negotiate the kind of Brexit they could endorse and/or for the UK to make provision to cushion the impact of a possible no deal Brexit on 30 June.
That's why every Brexiter I have seen seems relatively chipper, whereas all the Remainers are anguished.
In the end, the only way for the Prime Minister to terrify the ERG into voting for any version of her existing deal would be for her to signal that if they don't she would copy the magnificent pirouette performed by Jeremy Corbyn and come out in favour of a referendum, a 'people's vote'.
She has conspicuously always said that would be a jig too far.
But even though she expressed exactly the same reluctance about a) trying to change the backstop, b) delaying the vote on her deal, c) delaying Brexit, and yet has executed all three voltes faces, I would be staggered if she ever puts her name to a plebiscite.
And that is why Tuesday's events don't significantly reduce the probability of a no-deal Brexit, albeit a deferred one, or a much sharper break with the EU than the PM has been saying she wants.