What next on Midlands magical mystery tour to Brexit?

Westminster's famous village green on the day of the vote

A Raucous Pageant

That's how I described the scenes on Westminster's famous village green during my Midlands Today report on Tuesday's meaningful vote. There's an irony here. As the clock ticked down towards the biggest government defeat in history, I realised something weird and wonderful was happening.

I reported that there had been no repeat of the threatening scenes witnessed there the previous week. Far from it. As I mingled among the Midlanders taking part in this ritualised war of words, of familiar slogans and even more familiar placards against the relentless background of drumming, bells and whistles, the mood seemed to have changed altogether.

Anger had given way to something more like a party atmosphere. Leavers and Remainers alike were now celebrating the impending demise of Theresa May's draft Brexit deal. Despite their disagreements about what they want to happen, this was a remarkable display of agreement about what they don't.

In front of our divided Parliament in our divided nation, here at last was an impromptu display of unity!

Where next?

The challenge facing all our MPs now is to try to find a way through the jam in a Parliament where the various factions can produce no majority for anything: or risk an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

Deal? No deal? No Brexit?

Lucy Allan, MP for Telford, was among 11 local Conservative MPs who voted against Theresa May's draft agreement

In the event, 11 local Conservative MPs voted against Theresa May's draft agreement: Lucy Allan, Telford; Sir Bill Cash, Stone; Michael Fabricant, Lichfield; Eddie Hughes, Walsall North; Daniel Kawczynski, Shrewsbury and Atcham; Andrew Mitchell, Sutton Coldfield; Owen Paterson, Shropshire North; Mark Pritchard, Wrekin; Laurence Robertson, Tewkesbury; Bill Wiggin, North Herefordshire and Craig Tracey, North Warwickshire. A prominent Leave supporter, he resigned his job as a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the International Development in order to help vote the deal down.

Another Warwickshire Conservative, the Rugby MP, Mark Pawsey, is one of five local Conservatives who signed a cross-party letter urging the Prime Minister to rule out a "No Deal" exit. He told me he hoped the defeat of her proposed deal would prompt MPs on both sides of the House to work more constructively together.

Two local Labour MPs whose names have often featured in speculation about possible cross-party negotiations, Emma Reynolds, Wolverhampton North East, and Pat McFadden, Wolverhampton South East, both told me they had had no formal contacts with the Conservatives whatsoever, certainly not about Theresa May's deal.

You would think this would have to change, and soon, now that Mrs May has pledged, after her defeat, to "reach out" to senior parliamentarians "in a constructive spirit" and to communicate their ideas to the European Union.

Perhaps the Dudley North MP, Ian Austin, should be on the list as well. He is one of three Labour MPs who voted with the Government on Tuesday night.

Dudley North MP, Ian Austin, is one of three Labour MPs who voted with the Government

Meantime, the odds are shortening all the time on another referendum. The above-mentioned Pat McFadden is joined by Jess Phillips, Birmingham Yardley and Matt Western, Warwick and Leamington, among more than 70 MPs now campaigning openly for a further poll.

So where is all this leading?

I don't know and neither does anyone else. If they say they do, they're having you on, because we have never been in anything like this position before.

More than half a century has passed since the novelist L.P. Hartley coined the expression "the past is a foreign country".

As we stand on the threshold of the next leg of our Midlands magical mystery tour, the future looks like a far more distant alien land.