Did anyone really believe Tory MPS would vote to lose their own jobs?

Theresa May can’t unite the Conservative party. But Jeremy Corbyn can. Just over a month ago, no fewer than 117 of Mrs May’s own MPS voted for her to lose her job. Yesterday, however, every single one of them voted for her to keep her job.

What had changed? Had the Prime Minister won her backbench critics round with the dazzling display of leadership to which she’s treated them in the intervening weeks, climaxing in the greatest Commons defeat for any government in modern history?

No, of course not. Her critics think she’s as useless now as they did then.

The only difference is that this time, it wasn’t they who had called the vote of no confidence. It was the leader of the Labour Party. And if he won the vote, it wouldn’t just be Mrs May who stood to lose her job. They might lose theirs, too.

“I know opportunism when I see it!” bellowed Mark Francois (Con, Rayleigh and Wickford). “So can I tell [Mrs May] that the whole of the European Research Group will walk through the lobbies with her to vote this nonsense down!”

Yes, that’s right. The European Research Group. The very same gang of Tory MPS who had organised the failed coup against Mrs May exactly 36 days earlier. Their message to Mr Corbyn was clear. How dare he

‘Debate was a cavalcade of drivelling futility which consumed one of the precious few days before Brexit’

presume to topple the Prime Minister. That was their job.

Inevitably, then, yesterday’s confidence debate was a cavalcade of drivelling futility, which to precisely no useful purpose consumed one of the precious few days left before Brexit (there are now only 71 – and that’s if you include weekends and parliamentary holidays). A packed Commons looked on, pointlessly, as Mr Corbyn bleated like an enraged nanny goat, and Mrs May convulsed with artificial mirth. When her turn came to speak, the Prime Minister warned MPS that a snap election would “bring chaos”, “cause delay”, and “not be in the national interest”. Well, no one knows that better than she does.

Six hours, the debate lasted. Seriously. Six hours. Why there actually had to be speeches, rather than just a vote, was never made clear.

Did anyone really believe that Conservative MPS would be persuaded to vote against their own interests by a spluttering harangue from Mr Corbyn? Were any of them likely to be thinking, “Hmm. Until now, I preferred my own party being in power. But now that Jeremy Corbyn has spent half an hour calling us all evil selfish scumbags who divide our free time between mugging kittens and strangling orphans’ teddy bears, I’ll happily vote to lose my own job at his earliest convenience.”

Funnily enough, they didn’t, and the Government won, 325-306. The result, however, is unlikely to be final. Apparently Mr Corbyn is plotting to call more votes of no confidence in the coming weeks. Well, it’s not as if there’s anything else going on.