When is a government not a government? When it’s run by Boris Johnson. This joke is doing the rounds amongst the rebels who seized control of parliament last week and it’s depressingly accurate. The Prime Minister is now a prisoner in 10 Downing Street, kept there by Jeremy Corbyn who is refusing to let him hold a general election – and instead joining forces with Tory rebels to pass laws and issue instructions. Their hope is that, after a few more weeks of this torture, his Brexit deadline will has passed and he’ll be humiliated in the eyes of voters.

Dominic Grieve is enjoying this a bit too much. A former Attorney General and alumnus of Westminster School and Magdalen College he has, fairly late in life, tasted the vodka of rebellion and now seeks to finish the bottle. First he voted against Theresa May’s deal, then threatened to resign from his party. Now he’s using his lawyerly skills to draft legislation that Corbyn and his allies can deploy as they seek to destroy a Conservative Prime Minister. Philip Hammond is behaving in much the same way and although he has been kicked out of the Tory party, he’s hinted that he’ll sue his way back in.

The case for readmitting either to the Conservative Party doesn’t seem to be terribly strong, but the Prime Minister is now in reconciliatory mode. His tactics failed. Threatening to kick rebels out of the party seemed to intensify, rather than diminish, the insurrection. If he’s about to win an election, he’ll need the backing of Tory voters who have a soft spot for Rory Stewart, Amber Rudd and a good few of the others currently cast out of Tory paradise. But how to do this, without looking pathetic?

He can start by explaining what has just happened. Amber Rudd asked yesterday why is it that Brexiteers have rebelled against the party whip dozens of times and been forgiven while others who rebelled just once – last week – were expelled instantly. There’s an easy answer. This was defection, not rebellion. The whip was withdrawn from 21 Tories because they voted for power to be seized from a Tory government and given to Corbyn’s new rebel alliance. Doubtless for the most noble of reasons, they abandoned their own side and joined the other. With consequences that are unfolding now.

If parliament refuses to grant an election to a Prime Minister who has lost his majority, it creates a power vacuum that causes chaos. Courts get sucked into basic political disputes. The Scottish judges who ruled this week that prorogation was illegal did not ask to get involved in this. They were asked a question: did they believe that parliament was suspended for any reason other than making life harder for Brexit rebels? Like everyone else, they thought not. By a quirk of Scots law, this makes the Prime Minister’s prorogation illegal. We can expect more such madness in coming weeks.