Theresa May has made them wait so long for a meaningful vote, they’ve started resigning over meaningless ones

The prime minister has now kicked the can so far down the road, members of her own government are leaving before it runs out

There’s never been a franchise quite like Brexit High Noon, the latest instalment of which ended at half past seven on Wednesday evening with all the plot’s loose ends still dangling about like severed power lines, yet still having failed to generate any dramatic tension whatsoever.

This was, by my count, Brexit High Noon 7. We all know the plot by now and it makes Waiting for Godot look like Ocean’s Eleven. That famous whistling sound is heard. The protagonist appears in the street. A kitten heel supplants itself in the gravel. But there is no gunfight, just a solitary can sent flying down the road, yet again.

High noon becomes dusk. December turns to January. February drifts into March. In the streets outside, winter turns to summer without so much as even bothering with spring. The audience troops out the theatre, disappointed as ever and the canny executives commission the next in the series for two weeks hence. “Same bats*** time. Same bats*** channel.” That’s the way of things now.

This was supposed to be the 10 millionth time the House of Commons came finally to pronounce a settled position on Brexit. But it can’t do it, so Theresa May didn’t let it.

The various amendments, from Jeremy Corbyn, from Yvette Cooper, from the SNP and from the Conservatives too, that could have kept the UK variously in a permanent customs union, temporarily in the EU, or even permanently in the EU had been, yet again, stripped of all meaning by Theresa May’s decision on Tuesday, to let the House of Commons vote on delaying Article 50 in, yes, you’ve guessed it, two weeks time.

Still, it’s worth noting in the middle of the crossfire that never came, someone still had to resign. Conservative MP Alberto Costa, who happens to be the son of Italian parents, sought to bind the government to guaranteeing the status of EU nationals “at the earliest opportunity” and whatever happens in negotiations over trade. Costa is a parliamentary private secretary, an unpaid position and the very lowest rung on the ministerial ladder.

But if you’re in the government you’re not allowed to table amendments. He tabled his anyway and was then told to resign. And then the government accepted it anyway, so it was never voted on. It was the most pointless resignation round these parts since January last year, when a Tory peer called Lord Bates resigned for being late. That resignation was rejected. This one’s not only been accepted, but demanded.

Jeremy Corbyn’s amendment, to keep the UK in a “permanent customs union” and a “strong relationship with the single market” was rejected yet again, which if nothing else leads us to an interesting philosophical question: if a unicorn has never lived, can it be said to have died, because this one’s been killed about twenty times.

It means the Labour Party’s official position, in theory, becomes to support a second referendum on remaining in the European Union, although as Jeremy Corbyn made clear on Tuesday, that referendum would only happen if Theresa May’s deal was approved. In other words – he is only in favour of a second referendum in the exact circumstances in which there won’t be one.

Still, another outstanding day in Brexit. A member of the government has had to resign, just to try and make sure his own government does what it has said it will do.

Until the next Brexit high noon, nothing has changed. The guns do have to go off in the end.