After the Government was defeated in the final vote last night (the main motion as amended), Sir William Cash made the following point of order:
"The right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) just said that this was a constitutional innovation. I think he may have rather underestimated the fact that it is in fact a constitutional revolution, and the House will come to regret it".
And regret it they will. When you play with fire, expect to get burned. Here are the names of the 30 Conservative MPs who voted for the Letwin amendment to wrest control of the Brexit process from the Government:
Guto Bebb, Richard Benyon, Nick Boles, Steve Brine, Alistair Burt, Ken Clarke, Damian Collins, Alberto Costa, Jonathan Djanogly, George Freeman, Damian Green, Justine Greening, Dominic Grieve, Sam Gyimah, Richard Harrington, Jo Johnson, Phillip Lee, Jeremy Lefroy, Oliver Letwin, Paul Masterton, Andrew Mitchell, Nicky Morgan, Bob Neill, Sarah Newton, Mark Pawsey, Antoinette Sandbach, Nicholas Soames, Caroline Spelman, John Stevenson and Ed Vaizey.
Apart from these honourable exceptions (Kevin Barron, Ronnie Campbell, Rosie Cooper, Caroline Flint, Stephen Hepburn, Kate Hoey, John Mann and Graham Stringer), Labour MPs voted for the amendment, too. Gareth Snell abstained.
All those MPs who seek to take control of the Brexit process to overturn the result, or give us Brexit in name only, are enemies of the people. There is no other way to describe them. If the new Brexit Party (which hasn't been launched yet), UKIP, or some other political movement can harness the anger that is felt in the country right now by Brexit supporters, a political earthquake could be on the cards. It wouldn't surprise me if voters say to Labour and the Conservatives, "a plague on both your houses". And the way things are going, they deserve nothing less.