What's happening exactly now??
May thought she could treat the remain rebels like the Brexiteers and pull the wool over their eyes and they wouldn't notice.
Except the remain rebels are a bunch of eagle eyes lawyers not a bunch of clueless idealogs.
So it's gone horribly wrong.
The compromise they had agreed on was changed at the last minute after Dominic Grieve had left to catch his train for question time. What was put forward instead was a pile of meaningless arse and the rebels noticed.
This might have shafted them, except other Lord's had already agreed to put forward the original Grieve amendment instead of the compromise the government had offered.
Indeed they had already formally tabled it in the Lord's BEFORE the government came up with their dogs dinner.
So now the Lord's get to vote on it. And it will be surprising if they don't agree with Grieve. In which case the new Grieve amendment, supported and approved by the Lord's, gets sent back to the Commons for MPs to vote on.
So the Commons will have to, again, debate the amendment and decide whether they want to support it or vote against it.
This time however, having tried to twice stitch up the rebels, there is no way that they will agree to platitudes. They will want a legally binding alternative amendment from the government with vote or they will force the grieve amendment to a vote. And they will win.
Thus the government had two choices: suck it up or face a commons defeat.
A commons defeat for May, especially in the manner it's come about, looks increasingly like a vote of confidence in her handling of Brexit. It's not a vote of no confidence as such but it's getting dangerously close to one.
Which is why over the weekend you are likely to hear lots about a general election letting in a Corbyn government and how it's all the rebels fault or how they want to reverse brexit.
All of which is steaming dog shit.
But we have to go through the public charade of May pretending to be tough before the inevitable capitulation she was always going to do from the word go, and could have solved without any of the needless drama and loss of trust / respect.
May has no clue how to people manage nor how to lead. Nor clearly the ability to size up whether shafting this particular person is a) remotely likely to work b) a good idea to even attempt.
In other words the whole amendmentgate saga could simply be summed up with two words: 'total farce'.
And that's all you need to know, in addition to the fact that the rebels WILL get this amendment through, one way or another in a form they are happy with, and in the words of Anna Doubt, the Brexiteers are going to have to 'suck it up'.