The phrase Pyrrhic victory only exists because King Pyrrhus himself survived. Had absolutely everyone in his army right up to and including himself been killed at Asculum in 279BC there’d have been no one around to chalk it up as a difficult win to a passing historian.

There is no precedent for what must now be recorded as a “Brexit victory”. Not in the classics, not in Shakespeare, not the West Wing and nor in Game of Thrones has there been a win that is a crushing defeat for every last person involved.

It’s possible to feel sorry for Andrea Leadsom. When you’re the last person standing in a Mexican standoff played under Kamikaze rules, what choice do you have in the end but to deliver your payload upon yourself?

It’s worth a brief run-through the edited highlights of quite what has been unleashed in the three weeks since David Cameron stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street and suggested Britain needs a pro Brexit Prime Minister.

7 things you didn't know about Theresa May

Boris Johnson sabotaged himself by failing to give Leadsom a letter at a party. Michael Gove finished the job but in so doing appeared so feckless his colleagues decided he couldn’t be trusted. Only Leadsom remained, but her stake in the nation’s future (granted as it was by her womb) turned out not to be large enough to withstand a newspaper interview not going the way she wanted it to and so, emerging from the blood and smoke and all-out carnage is a new Prime Minister who didn’t even campaign for Brexit to begin with.

Vote Leave’s slogans were explicitly designed not to mean anything – you don’t win anything in politics without abstract nouns – but it is nevertheless reasonable to assume “Take Control” was not meant to describe a situation in which referendum victory would lead to the sequential self-immolation of each of its architects.

The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address Show all 6 1 /6 The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address Brexit The big one. Theresa May has spoken publicly three times since declaring her intent to stand in the Tory Leadership race, and each time she has said, ‘Brexit means Brexit.’ It sounds resolute, but it is helpful to her that Brexit is a made up word with no real meaning. She has said there will be ‘no second referendum’ and no re-entry in to the EU via the back door. But she, like the Leave campaign of which she was not a member, has pointedly not said with any precision what she thinks Brexit means Reuters The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address General election This is very much one to keep off the to do list. She said last week there would be ‘no general election’ at this time of great instability. But there have already been calls for one from opposition parties. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act of 2010 makes it far more difficult to call a snap general election, a difficulty she will be in no rush to overcome. In the event of a victory for Leadsom, who was not popular with her own parliamentary colleagues, an election might have been required, but May has the overwhelming backing of the parliamentary party Getty The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address HS2 Macbeth has been quoted far too much in recent weeks, but it will be up to May to decide whether, with regard to the new high speed train link between London, Birmingham, the East Midlands and the north, ‘returning were as tedious as go o’er.’ Billions have already been spent. But the £55bn it will cost, at a bare minimum, must now be considered against the grim reality of significantly diminished public finances in the short to medium term at least. It is not scheduled to be completed until 2033, by which point it is not completely unreasonable to imagine a massive, driverless car-led transport revolution having rendered it redundant EPA The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address Heathrow expansion Or indeed Gatwick expansion. Or Boris Island, though that option is seems as finished as the man himself. The decision on where to expand aviation capacity in the south east has been delayed to the point of becoming a national embarrassment. A final decision was due in autumn. Whatever is decided, there will be vast opprobrium PA The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address Trident renewal David Cameron indicated two days ago that there will be a Commons vote on renewing Britain’s nuclear deterrent on July 18th, by which point we now know, Ms May will be Prime Minister. The Labour Party is, to put it mildly, divided on the issue. This will be an early opportunity to maximise their embarrassment, and return to Tory business as usual EPA The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address Scottish Independence Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are in no doubt that the Brexit vote provides the opportunity for a second independence referendum, in which they can emerge victorious. The Scottish Parliament at Holyrood has the authority to call a second referendum, but Ms May and the British Parliament are by no means automatically compelled to accept the result. She could argue it was settled in 2014 AFP/Getty

Of course, we know the moment Vote Leave lost was when it won. Johnson was meant to use a 2 per cent defeat to Take Control of 10 Downing Street. He accidentally took control of the wrong thing.

Gove wanted to set about the nation with reformist zeal, the fact that reform would be rendered impossible by the unimaginable folly of his actions was an obstacle to be negotiated later. And Leadsom, well, she appeared profoundly deluded about what leaving the EU meant, telling The Times, in a moment of luminous stupidity overshadowed by the other one: “All we need to do is continue as before.” Which is the one thing we cannot now do.

And so we welcome our new Remain-campaigning, Leave-leading Prime Minister, Theresa May. In her campaign – if two speeches, of which one was rendered immediately redundant, can be called a campaign – one thing was made clear: “Brexit means Brexit.” She said it twice.

But quite what Brexit means still no one has any idea. All that’s known for certain is that 52 per cent of the population voted for something that isn’t Theresa May, and whatever it was has vanished entirely into the hills.