To nobody's surprise, Boris Johnson's Brexit bill has breezed through the Commons

The brutal logic of the first-past-the-post system gave an air of inevitability to Johnson's Brexit bill

After a Westminster year consumed by drama and tension over Brexit, when the bill to take the UK out of the EU finally passed the Commons it was very much a case of “not with a bang but a whimper”.

Opposition attempts to amend Boris Johnson’s withdrawal deal were brushed aside without difficulty, and aside from Scottish National Party protests at being taken out of the EU against their will, the mood among opponents of Brexit was largely one of resignation.

Mr Johnson’s landslide 80-seat majority in last month’s election has changed the balance of power of parliament enormously, and nowhere more so than in the Brexit debate.

Where Theresa May’s deal failed three times to get through the Commons – once by a record 230 votes – Mr Johnson’s largely similar package sailed through with a comfortable 99-vote margin with no need for cajoling and arm-twisting by whips.

The certainty of government victory left MPs effectively going through the motions during the three days set aside for the final stages of the bill’s passage through the Commons this week.

MPs, who had ferociously protested in the autumn that they needed more time to subject the bill to forensic scrutiny, found themselves unable to find enough to say to fill the hours provided by the government for debate.

Ironically – as Labour’s Paul Blomfield pointed out – Mr Johnson’s domination of the Commons was delivered by an election in which a majority of voters backed parties offering a second referendum on Brexit. And the polls continue to suggest that most Britons would now prefer to stay in the EU.

But the brutal logic of the first-past-the-post system has given an air of inevitability to the process which has taken all of the wind out of the sails of anti-Brexiteers in the Commons.

For Westminster-watchers whose lives have been dominated by Brexit rows for the last four years, it will take a bit of adjustment. A generation of MPs, officials and reporters have never known a parliament where Brexit was not the only issue and where the prime minister could get his or her way.

But of course, this ‘new normal’ comes at a time when the most important decisions on Brexit – the UK’s future trading and security relations with Europe and its efforts to strike new partnerships in the rest of the world – are still to be taken.

It remains to be seen whether parliament will simply accept that Brexit has now been “done” or whether MPs will rise to the challenge of scrutinising the government as it undertakes negotiations which will determine the UK’s prospects for decades to come.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political editor