What Last Night's Big Vote Means for Brexit

Alternative measures. Not just a great name for a post-punk band – the little sealed sarcophagus we've excavated from deep within the Sphinx of the Brexit process. Alternative measures. What could it mean? Let's hope it means something, because tectonic political forces are now staked on this greyish mystery meat. Certainly the Brexit Secretary didn't seem to know what it meant when he turned up on the Today programme this morning:

"That is something we will now be exploring with our European counterparts," said Stephen Barclay.

"You're going to Brussels to explore? At this stage?" Nick Robinson wheezed.

Is it possible for someone to audibly wince? The Brexit Secretary gave it his best shot.

But there it is – the drama of last night was all in its anticlimax. Only two of the seven motions that MPs voted on passed. Crucially, Yvette Cooper’s – to extend the Brexit process if there was no deal by late-February – flunked.

Graham Brady's motion – to renounce the hated Irish Backstop and instead look at "alternative measures" – passed.

Which is why last night has been proclaimed as a rout for the forces of Remain. But was it?

Certainly, it was an evening full of paradoxes. There were eight Tory rebels who voted against Graham Brady’s amendment. And nine Labour rebels who voted for it. Perhaps the two parties could just do a prisoner-swap at this point? Handy training for when the IRA start acting up again.

Then there were the Hard Brexiteers, who are increasingly looking all over the shop. Initially, Jacob Rees-Mogg's crucial Eurosceptic bloc rejected the Brady amendment, despite Theresa May’s support for it. "We’ve decided No Deal is better than a bad deal," as one joker had it, coming out of their urgent conference with the PM. Eventually, their 60-odd MPs got behind it, but were instantly accused of "voting with their fingers crossed". They want to run down the clock, thwart the government, head as close to WTO Rules as possible. But cunning plans are not their specialty – see their two slapstick attempts to remove the PM.

For Theresa May, the night was a minor triumph, comparatively speaking. Everything she’d wanted and almost nothing she didn’t. She now has a "mandate" to go back to Brussels and tell them to change the backstop.

But they won’t. Going into the vote, the EU’s instructions were clear – they will look seriously at re-opening negotiations where there is a stable majority, not a fluke one; 317 to 301 doesn’t tip those scales. No wonder the statement they read out after the vote sounded like it had been written before it. No new talks – at the very least, until someone works out what an "alternative measure" is.

It might not matter what’s in the sarcophagus after all – because the PM also wants to run down the clock, to do the precise inverse of what the Brexiteers want, bounce everyone into supporting her deal, at a point where the other options have faded from view.

That’s a dangerous game. While the hoopla in Britain is of Brady’s motion, across the Channel, they are look more towards the only other motion to pass last night – Caroline Spelman's – about blocking off the No Deal option. Unlike the others, this one was non-binding – to be bound, Parliament would need full legislation, not simply an amendment. But it also received one more vote than Brady’s. Plus, the price of passing the Brady amendment was a government side-offer to Tory Remainers: that Parliament could come back for further votes on the 13th of February.

At that point, the EU hopes, MPs will seal off the No Deal exit more formally, and when that happens, this game of chicken will be over; then, they will come quietly; MPs will be railroaded into re-opening wider negotiations – we’ll take a softer Brexit, the Customs Union one that can command the support of most of Labour, as well as the Tories. Crucially, Jeremy Corbyn’s chief contribution was to announce after the vote that he finally will be having his stalled talks with the PM.

But wait a minute – isn’t the EU’s own logic precisely the sort that the Westminster-watchers started yesterday with: that Yvette Cooper’s "postpone Brexit" amendment would definitely pass because MPs don't want to risk No Deal? That was all very well until northern Labour MPs started getting cold feet – once they took the temperature back in their Leave constituencies.

So here we are: everywhere and nowhere; endless ultimatums, and nerve-shredding inaction. Someone remind us how the First World War started again? Something to do with secret deals, pompous overconfidence, a misread game of chicken, then the deep undertow of events running ahead of naïve diplomats? It may seem like the endgame, but we’re still nowhere near the 11th hour.

@gavhaynes