Meaningful vote

The government’s negotiated terms for leaving the European Union are defeated in the Commons by a majority of 230.

No government in the history of the UK parliament has lost a vote by such a margin, let alone one on its flagship policy. And yet the prime minister whose terms of departure from the European Union were so thoroughly defeated in the Commons yesterday survives and is likely to win a confidence vote brought today by the opposition parties.

It’s an extraordinary mess, mostly of Theresa May’s own making, while universities and the rest of the country are no further forward in knowing what will happen next. But in a legal sense, to coin a phrase, nothing has changed.