At least, in the end, hatred of Theresa May's deal brought the country and the commons together

There is still no path forward that does not turn up the burners on a nation simmering towards something like civil war

Never again let it be said that the House of Commons is out of touch with the British people. That it’s a cosseted elite. That it doesn’t know how the ordinary people feel.

At the end of a historic day in which, actually, nothing has changed, at least that little myth was put to rest.

For eight hours inside the House of Commons, MPs rose to attack one another, to tear one another’s positions to shreds but shed no light on what to do next.

In the streets outside the House of Commons, the nation simmered gently towards civil war. The People’s Vote campaign held a rally on Parliament Square. Men, and it must be said, one or two women, moved amongst it in hi viz yellow vests, chanting “bollocks to the EU”. When Caroline Lucas appeared on the big screens to address the crowds, one of these men screamed at the top of his voice, “Commie Slag!”

Another chap, waving a flag reading “Remainers Are Traitors”, strolled through the Remain rally, shouting, “Remainers Are Traitors”. When an elderly man took issue with the notion of his own supposed treachery, the flagman told a nearby police officer he was “stirring up trouble”.

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But, inside, after the sound and the fury, they opened up the voting lobbies and they all walked through them together. 202 of them were in favour of Theresa May’s deal. 432 against. If they’d swung open the doors of the House of Commons and let the massed mad ranks of the Brexit radicalised vote with them, they’d have all gone through the same door as well.

If Theresa May is searching for the positives, after the sole purpose of her existence for the last two and a half years was killed off in scenes every bit as brutal as the rumours that sometimes slip out of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, she might reflect that she has brought people together.

In the introduction to The Audacity of Hope, a then young senator and writer by the name of Barack Obama reflected that the art of politics was that, no matter how divided people are, no matter how irreconcilable their positions, there would always be something that could unite them, if you could only find it.

And to that end, this universal loathing of Theresa May’s deal, in the House of Commons, and seemingly in the public at large (at least if the kind of people that can spare a Tuesday afternoon to dress up like a volunteer car park attendant and shout obscenities at perfect strangers can be taken as a representative sample), could yet be the touchstone that drives us to a better future.

Because, let’s be clear, on this day of history, nothing else historic happened. The study of history cannot be done in advance. History can only be conferred upon events once the thread of time has passed through them and patterns are seen to emerge.

No one said anything that will be remembered. No one did anything that will bend the nation’s future away from the path it was already self-evidently set upon.

At 6pm, the MPs crowded into the chamber, packed toe on toe at the bar of the house, and crammed in behind the speaker’s chair. The air was hot. The great iron chandeliers glowed with their soft light, turning the wood panelled room soft brown to bright orange. All the trappings of history had been conferred upon it, but it only served to confirm the obvious. That both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are by several orders of magnitude not up to the job. Even at this grave hour, neither are capable of uttering a word that is worth listening to.

High in the peers’ gallery, where guests of MPs come to watch proceedings, a young woman in dark glasses was asleep to the point of sedation. Her concealed eyes gazed heavenward. Her open mouth formed a scalene triangle. In its least acute corner, dribble visibly gathered.

Mr Corbyn could only ramble about Theresa May’s “botched” and “damaging” deal. Abstract nouns are always the friend of the politician with nothing to say. On Mrs May’s part, she did at least patiently point out, yet again, that no alternatives are yet forthcoming. As Mr Corbyn made his predictable demands for a general election, she had the courage to point out that, “At the end of a general election the choices facing the country would be the same.” Which is to say, she admits quite openly there is every chance neither she nor her party would emerge from it with anything like a majority.

As the division was called, and MPs filed towards the lobbies, Tulip Siddiq was brought to the floor of the house in a wheelchair. She had been due to give birth today by Caesarian section. She was there to vote, she said, because last year, in a crucial vote, the Tory whips had “stolen a vote from a young mother”.

They would be casting, at least as far as Theresa May was concerned, “the most important vote of any of our careers.” On this historic day, Ed Vaizey MP had evidently left his security pass at home. The hand of history on his shoulder would only have had to have crept forward slightly to touch the temporary paper visitor’s badge clipped to his breast pocket.

When the numbers, eventually, were read out, the air left the room for a moment then crept back in. “The ayes to the right, 202.” It was a massacre. But if anything, a prime minister who has never been a stranger to the hopeless flail, found a register of composure that has not been seen before. She would have to wait and see if the house had confidence in her government.

She would be told, within seconds, that it did not. Jeremy Corbyn greeted the defeat with the observation that it had been “the biggest defeat inflicted on a government since 1924”.

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He was wrong about this. Back then, Ramsay MacDonald only lost by 166 votes, not 230, but when it comes to deviating from the script put in front of him, Jeremy Corbyn makes Ron Burgundy look like an award winning improv act.

It was his squeaky little peroration at the end that revealed the degree to which the man is out of his depth. The jabbing of his indignant little head, like a small sparrow trying to get to grips with a discarded chicken nugget. “I have now tabled. A motion. Of No Confidence. In this government,” he announced.

That motion will be voted on tomorrow, and Theresa May, barring a miracle will win it. She can lose a vote by 230, and still, apparently, command the confidence of the House of Commons.

They filed out at the end, into their waiting cars, and on to the streets of a country none the wiser. Where next? The four options are the same as before. There is Theresa May’s deal, but the Commons has just killed that stone dead. There is no deal, but the Commons will not permit the economic shock involved. There is some kind of single market, customs union, Norway plus type affair, but the Commons will not permit free movement of people. And there is remaining in the European Union via a second referendum, but the Commons will not permit the betrayal of democracy.

The destination of Brexit will be the path of least resistance through that impenetrable forest. Nobody knows what it is, and there are none that will not turn up the burners on a nation ready to break.

Almost nothing has changed.