hris Bryant, the Labour MP and historian of parliament, insists that the rules of the House of Commons prevent the prime minister from repeatedly putting the same proposal to the vote.

He tabled an amendment that “ordered” the government not to put its Brexit deal to a further vote of MPs next week. In it he quotes the authority on parliamentary procedure, Erskine May: “A motion or an amendment which is the same, in substance, as a question which has been decided during a session may not be brought forward again during that same session.”