Sometimes the most important thing to say is also the most obvious.

Above all of the labyrinthine discussions of rules and allegiances and procedures hovers one clear fact: at this moment in time the Liberal Party is miserably divided.

That much is true, and yet, strangely, there is also a floating sense of calm, a lingering doubt that things are as bad as they sometimes seem. Hour by hour events build, new dramatic threats are made, and it is possible to believe that the government could crumble at any minute. And then, the way a cool breeze can sometimes snap you out of a reverie, a fact will come along and remind you that all anyone has witnessed, so far, is an extended bout of shadow-boxing.

Which is a long way of saying it is very, very hard to know what is going on.

Let’s go through the disasters first.

Paul Kelly reports today [$] that at least one Coalition MP is threatening to defect to the crossbench should moderate Liberal MPs cross the floor to deliver marriage equality, and that the prime minister has been told of this threat.

If the threat were carried out, that would be a massive deal, delivering a hung parliament and minority government. Turnbull would have to take responsibility for that. It could easily end his leadership.

But let’s not jump too far ahead: two other points should be made about this. Conservatives will say the moderate Liberal MPs can avoid this outcome by not crossing the floor. But that ignores the simpler solution: withdraw the threat. Don’t rat on your own party. The person most responsible for a defection is the person who defects.

The second point to make is that it is just a threat. Would it actually be carried out? It’s hard to say.

The dramas don’t end there. The preselections of the Liberal MPs who are suggesting they might cross the floor, several of whom are gay, are being threatened. This threat I think is even less likely to be carried out. It is also an unconscionable act of intimidation. We are talking about senior members of the Liberal Party targeting gay MPs for standing up for gay rights. You can make pernickety arguments that they are actually being targeted for undermining the party or some such, but those arguments are idiotic and the type of bigoted contrivances that are always used to oppress minorities. It’s never about their race, or their sexuality, or their gender – except that it always is.

Threats to Turnbull’s leadership are being mooted [$], too, with the team of Peter Dutton and Greg Hunt being mentioned, but as Dennis Atkins explains [$], this seems an unlikely result. Conservatives told the Daily Telegraph this could all be “the beginning of the end” for Turnbull, but when you look twice at that quote it’s actually a pretty weak threat. Only the beginning?

Then there are the debates around procedure. Last night Senator Eric Abetz said that “if a government loses a procedural vote on the floor of the House because certain members deliberately vote with Labor and the Greens then that is an exceptionally grave matter”.

Abetz is not quite right, but neither is he quite wrong. The government has already lost procedural votes in the House in this term of government. The Gillard government also lost procedural votes. By itself this is not a huge deal. But it would be a grave matter, because it would lead to a vote on the actual same-sex marriage issue, which you would then expect the government to lose. It is interesting that Turnbull has in recent days been making it clear that the plebiscite policy was an important part of the government’s election platform, which – if the policy was defeated – could raise questions of confidence in the government. These would be very unlikely to go anywhere – a government can simply vote to reaffirm confidence in itself – but there is no doubt it would be a serious matter.

On the same logic, by the way, I think if you agree MPs have a right to cross the floor on policy issues whenever they want, then you should acknowledge that the same right extends to procedural issues enabling the policy issue to be voted on. Both are matters of conscience. But that doesn’t get around the fact that these MPs would be delivering votes to defeat government policy, not just to narrow the size of a government win.

Interestingly, Liberal MP Tim Wilson told Paul Kelly that he “will not vote for a Labor motion to bring on the debate, or a Labor bill”. But, as has been pointed out elsewhere, this does not prevent Wilson voting for a crossbench motion, or a motion from a Liberal MP.

There is even division on where same-sex marriage should be debated. Barnaby Joyce wants it in the joint Coalition party room, which would make any pro-marriage-equality move more likely to fail. This would be incredibly ironic, given that Tony Abbott’s decision to debate same-sex marriage in the Coalition party room rather than the Liberal party room was partly responsible for his downfall.

Finally, a postal plebiscite is gaining momentum, and the prime minister refused to comment on it for the second day running. Late today, Sky News was reporting that the government had sought advice on such a move. It also emerged that even the PM himself has rubbished postal plebiscites in the past [$], attacking them for the low number of votes they attract and the fact they exclude young people and remote Indigenous communities. That said, these days it seems past public comments mean nothing at all. Everybody has held every position on everything.

Standing back from all these individual elements, what they all have in common is that nobody is saying what they will actually do. Will anybody actually defect? Will anybody’s preselection really be challenged? Will anybody cross the floor? If they do, what precisely are the consequences of such an “exceptionally grave matter”? Does Turnbull really want a postal plebiscite?

We don’t know.

The other thing to bear in mind is that it is only (sigh) Wednesday. We are still six days away from partyroom meetings. Turnbull may choose to let matters build before swooping in with a solution – this would be very Turnbull. Or he might choose to call his leadership posse together to come up with some sort of settlement in the next couple of days, before anyone locks themselves into a particular course. Turnbull might have a plan mapped out. Or he might be like the rest of us, staring at shadows, not sure what’s real.

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