Brexiteers who lack stomach for the "nuclear option" may as well give up now

After the political sparks of last week’s no-confidence vote, an ashen silence has fallen on the Brexiteer camp. For a group that has been vehemently calling for Theresa May to quit, their refusal on Monday to back a second motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister, this time tabled by Jeremy Corbyn, seems a little puzzling – especially as Mrs May would be under huge pressure to go after losing it. Even more galling are the rumours doing the rounds that some Brexiteers are actually coming around to their leader’s ghastly deal.

Perhaps, having used up their biggest parliamentary trump card damaging but not dislodging the Prime Minister, they are now resigned to their own impotence as they cannot challenge her for another year. Perhaps they are trying to behave themselves and get back into Mrs May’s good books in the vain hope that she will come to her senses and back no deal. Or perhaps they are genuinely entertaining the idea of voting in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement in January out of naked panic, as the whinging battle cry for a People’s Vote becomes deafening in the Commons.