We are now at the stage of Brexit where Theresa May inflicts her own defeats upon herself

Theresa May said she will herself introduce legislation to let the commons vote to delay Article 50, then told them not to do it. The government is literally defeating itself

Four and a bit years after David Cameron accidentally coined the term, we finally have a definition of “masosadism” and it turns out it’s Theresa May.

What do you do when the House of Commons keeps inflicting humiliating defeats on you? The answer, it turns out, is simples. You deny them the satisfaction, and start inflicting them on yourself instead.

It was, in its own way, taking back control, something that May declined to vote for on 23 June 2016, but better late than never.

According to the official parliamentary records, May has told the House of Commons a full 79 times that we are leaving the European Union on 29 March. She has ruled out the possibility of any delay, or any extension to Article 50, almost as many times. But right at the moment, various backbenchers were conspiring to take the power to do that out of her hands, she just did it herself.

Allowing for various preconditions which we’ll come on to shortly, the government will, she said, “bring forward a motion on whether parliament wants to seek a short, limited extension to article 50”.

With her next breath, she made it clear that she was, herself, absolutely against extending Article 50, which means we are now at the stage of Brexit where the prime minister is herself introducing legislation she herself wants to be defeated.

It means that the Brexit video game has now perhaps reached its last level. The final boss you must beat is always yourself, the final enemy to conquer is your own mirror image. Luke and Darth. Ken and Ryu. May and May.

But it also elevates Brexit from merely “mad riddle that no one understands” level (copyright Danny Dyer), to a badly set puzzle that just cannot be solved.

Here, for your delectation, are Brexit’s next stages. On 12 March, the House of Commons will have a “meaningful vote” on May’s newly renegotiated Brexit deal, which will not have been renegotiated in any meaningful way, because the negotiations concluded months ago. It will probably vote it down.

On 13 March, the House of Commons will then vote on whether it will accept a “no-deal” Brexit. It will almost certainly vote that it will not accept one. No deal will officially no longer be better than a bad deal. And then, the very next day, Brexit may no longer mean Brexit.

On 14 March, the commons will vote on whether to extend Article 50 for a limited time. And May will encourage them not to do so. She’ll do this for reasons she set out, the most significant among them being that if Brexit were to be delayed until, say the end of June, the EU parliament elections will have been and gone, the UK will not have taken part in them, it would have no MEPs, could not realistically remain in the European Union, and so a second delay would become virtually impossible. She described this as a “sharper cliff edge”. But the cliff edge is no longer the analogy. It is not so much getting in a car, pointing it at the horizon and slamming down the accelerator. It is just locking the doors, destroying the key and waiting for the air to run out.

And naturally, never to be surpassed in the sh*tshow stakes, Jeremy Corbyn was on hand with his own genius idea. Now that eight of his MPs have set up a new party, explicitly designed to appeal to the vast majority of Labour voters who are pro-Remain, it turns out Corbyn has rediscovered the nanoscopically thin pro-Remain credentials he wore with astonishing unease during the Brexit referendum.

As of today, Corbyn and Labour, are in favour of a second referendum, but only under a particular set of circumstances that stand precisely 0 per cent chance of ever coming to pass. “The prime minister’s botched deal provides no certainty or guarantees for the future, and was comprehensively rejected by this House,” he barked at May. “We cannot risk our country’s industry and people’s livelihoods, so if it somehow passes in some form at a later stage, we believe there must be a confirmatory public vote to see if people feel that that is what they voted for.”

So this is Labour’s position. There will be a second referendum, but only if May’s deal passes. In other words, Corbyn is prepared to offer a second referendum as a way out of the Brexit impasse, but only after a way out of the impasse has been found.

As ever, it’s hard to know where to start with this. The House of Commons has been stuck on a Brexit desert island for months now, and here was Corbyn, announcing that he is now be prepared to consider building a raft, but only after the helicopter has arrived and carried everyone to safety.

It was another masterclass in straight talking, honest politics, from the least straight talking, most dishonest party leader in decades.

It is, frankly surreal to have to point out that by the time these votes take place in mid March, the bacon on Britain’s supermarket shelves will still be in date by the time the UK is meant to leave the EU. Nothing other than Britain’s future, and the economic prospects of 70 million people, will have to be decided in less time than it takes for raw meat to go off.

That is unless Corbyn finds his way out of a riddle that has already been solved, and May is ultimately unable to defeat May. Or is it the other way round? Frankly I’ve got no idea.