Ever since David Cameron took it on himself to prise open Pandora’s box and call the EU referendum, the only thing that’s been predictable has been the utter unpredictability of what has followed. The prospect of Theresa May now taking on Erskine May, whose work lays down the procedural rules of the House of Commons, is but the latest twist in this epic Whitehall farce. His book was first published in 1844, and there is a simple reason that it’s still the principal point of reference when it comes to our constitution: it has passed the toughest test of all – time.

I had hoped it would be the start of a collegiate approach, but the whole process has been executed back to front

Once the country voted for Brexit, I wanted the prime minister to make a success of it, but I knew that unpicking 45 years of entwinement with the EU would be impossible without our elected lawmakers being fully involved. I recognised too that neither “taking back control” nor the simple line on the ballot paper “leave the European Union” could be construed as giving her the right to deny parliamentary sovereignty.

That is why I fought my case, first the high court and then, after the government appealed, in the supreme court, for the House of Commons to be given its right to debate and vote invoking article 50. I knew that to allow May to override parliament would set a dangerous precedent. And let us be clear: if the courts had not ruled in my favour, the prime minister’s disastrous withdrawal agreement, which everyone from Boris Johnson to David Lammy has agreed would be terrible for our country, would have gone through unchallenged.

I never doubted that our parliamentarians would vote to trigger article 50 but I expected a detailed, pragmatic debate around the options of how to execute Brexit and the processes involved. I had hoped it would be the start of a collegiate approach to this challenge, but the whole process has been executed back to front. If the government had allowed parliamentary debates and sought the consensus of MPs, then triggered article 50 and negotiated on their favoured option, we would not be in the chaos we are in today.

Instead, we are faced with 10 tumultuous days to potentially exiting the EU, in the worst constitutional crisis since 1909 – when the then Conservative-dominated House of Lords blocked the Liberal government’s so-called People’s Budget. We are now living through equally historic days and the pressure on our parliamentary system is just as intense.

May’s challenge to the authority of the Speaker does not turn on personalities but, instead, on how our country has been run for centuries. Even Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, conceded today that John Bercow is, to all intents and purposes, the “referee” of the Commons, and therefore his rulings must be accepted and respected by all sides, or chaos would ensue.

It is all very well for some MPs and commentators to mock Bercow for reviving a convention dating back to 1604, but what it stated was no more than common sense: no prime minister before May has ever attempted to get through the Commons a vote as historically and comprehensively rejected as hers has been, by the simple process of attrition. Trying to wear down elected politicians by presenting a materially unchanged bill over and over again while the clock runs down was a reckless a course of action. The Speaker, John Bercow, rightly understands that a third meaningful vote in the coming days on “substantially the same” motion that MPs have twice rejected would open our parliament up to ridicule.

May’s greatest weakness is her intransigence. She now appears to see Bercow as standing in her way, and her only strategy is to try to trample him underfoot. No doubt her advisers have told her that the only way round the Speaker’s ruling would be to prorogue parliament and start a new session. There’s no way, feasibly, that this could be done in under a week (minus the two days the PM will be in Brussels), coupled with the fact that a 92-year old monarch can’t reasonably be made to come to parliament in state at a moment’s notice.

To complicate matters still further, any legislation not subject to a carry-over motion would automatically be discarded and be a huge waste of parliamentary time in both houses. Some of the major Brexit-related bills stuck in the Lords may face this fate – in which case they would have to be reintroduced and go through all their parliamentary stages again.

There is an exquisite irony – apparently lost on May and her advisers in their No 10 bunker – that she thinks it’s absolutely fine to keep bringing back her meaningful vote until she gets the outcome she desires, while publicly decrying remainers’ appeals for a second plebiscite.

In the immediate aftermath of Bercow’s ruling, the arch-Brexit supporters Bill Cash and Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared ecstatic, presumably because they believed that this makes no deal more likely. The Commons has, however, indicatively ruled this out, which presumably means an extension is much more likely because, at the very least, it will allow parliament to pass all the required legislation.

The time has come and gone for May to carry on kicking the MV3/MV4 can down the road toward the no-deal cliff edge next week. If she gets nothing substantive out of the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, the Speaker should insist that she and her failing government come to the Commons on Saturday, in an emergency sitting, for a final showdown on her proposed deal.

• Gina Miller is a transparency activist and the founder of Lead Not Leave