You probably saw a lot of articles about the EU Withdrawal Bill last week. There were two major votes in Parliament on a crucial and frankly long-overdue piece of legislation. Most of the headlines, however, tended to focus on the politicking.

EU Withdrawal Bill returned to the House of Commons last week with various votes on amendments proposed by the House of Lords in two gruelling six-hour sessions. The Tories have 316 seats, propped up by 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs, and, under this arrangement, the Government basically hope to get divisive Brexit laws through by the skin of their teeth.

There were a string of amendments that tried to set the Government’s negotiating objectives, with options such as: staying in a customs union of some kind, staying in the European Economic Area (the Norway Option), retaining access to the internal market.

All were blocked, so the government has free reign to negotiate any kind of Brexit it likes. Good news for European negotiators.

There was a slew of defeated amendments. We had amendments to safeguard work, health and safety and environmental standards. These were defeated.

Then there were amendments about the actual power ministers will have to implement Brexit — most often flagged by discussion of ‘Henry VIII powers’ — and amendments to make the exit date subject to Parliamentary approval. All defeated.

All these were really a grueling series of appetizers for the main event: the ‘meaningful final vote’ that Tory rebel Dominic Grieve pushed through in December 2017. Any Tory rebellion has the potential to permanently unsettle May’s government, a barely coherent collection of long-term political enemies, and prompt yet another election.

Theresa May held 11th hour talks with Grieve’s 14 rebels, and the government won a vote to reject the amendment, on the proviso that there would be yet another amendment giving MPs power to direct government in the event of no deal at all.

That pushed things back all the way to Thursday, but was heavily watered down, meaning that Grieve and his merry men were furious and the Government was defeated in the vote.

May basically offset one set of crisis talks to another a few days later because she is constantly trying to make concessions to the various warring tribes of Toryland.

The running theme is that the government got its way consistently, although usually by only a handful of votes. May made a lot of last minute concessions to backbenchers to secure the votes. Phillip Lees resigned, David Davis threatened to resign (again) and Boris Johnson continues to be a pillock. Then there’s the Government’s Faustian pact with the DUP, another plate Theresa May needs to keep spinning.

The disarray within the Conservative Party is a spectacularly underreported story. By comparison, divisions within the Labour Party seem to get endless coverage.

And, sure, it’s reasonable to cover infighting in a major political party, but it’s hard to pay attention to what’s going on in the opposition while the Government stumbles backwards into Brexit — undoubtedly the most impactful political event since the Financial Crisis — arguing with each other which way is the best way to go despite the fact the EU is who they should be negotiating with.

The bottom line is the votes last week weren’t about preventing Brexit, they were about softening it, putting it under greater scrutiny, and protecting some of the best loved aspects of EU legislation. That’s what actually mattered, not the deal making or theatrics of threatened resignations.

The bizarre thing about watching this from Brussels is that everybody seems to have forgotten that Brexit isn’t a competition between Theresa May and the UK Parliament. And it really does seem like everybody — the Government, the rebels, the DUP, Labour and even the British press.

A question for British readers: how often in the last two weeks have these discussions touched on what the EU’s position is or what is holding up those negotiations or how the UK government are planning on getting their way? Once, perhaps?

It’s easy to get distracted by domestic politics. I’ve argued in the past that one of the core reasons Brexit came about was because UK politics had ignored, dismissed and demonized European politics for so long. British politics is spectacularly insular and, normally, that’s fine. Most politics is domestic.

It can hurt you though. It can hurt you, for example, when you call a referendum to appease your backbenchers and are surprised by a population primed to detest Europe. And it can really hurt you when the next several decades are going to be shaped by how well you negotiate a deal with the EU.

Politics isn’t domestic anymore. It won’t be for years and years and years. It’s time to start paying attention at what’s happening beyond the Channel.