Whoever succeeds Theresa May will have to realise a second referendum is the only way to resolve Brexit

The prime minister’s planned departure will makes comparatively little difference to the immediate question of how to get Britain out of its present difficulties

No greater love can a politician have for their cause than to lay down their career for its life. And so it is with Theresa May, Brexit and her martyrdom.

Her near-religious devotion to the deal she spent the past two years negotiating, and then trying to renegotiate, is such that she has kept faith in it despite it suffering two historic, crushing defeats in the House of Commons.

She would, it seems, do anything to get it “over the line” – except perhaps, as the daughter of an Anglican vicar, sell her soul to the devil.

We cannot know what she might have offered to Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson to gain their (still tentative and, in the former’s case, conditional) support, not to mention the incentives she may have discussed with Leave-inclined Labour MPs and the DUP. Now it seems she is prepared to throw herself into the bargain.

Noble and dramatic as the gesture appears, though, there is perhaps less to it than meets the eye. She has already undertaken to stand down from the Tory leadership before the next election – that was the price she paid for winning an internal party vote of confidence last December – and few believe that the noises coming from her backbenchers or even within her cabinet would have given her much cause to believe she had a long premiership ahead of her.

Indeed, she was fortunate not to have had to quit immediately after the disastrous snap election of 2017, when she jettisoned her closest advisers on the insistence of her colleagues.

More crucial still, her departure makes comparatively little difference to the immediate question of how to get Britain out of its Brexit mess. The prime minister’s deal is not going to succeed in doing that, both because of its inherent flaws and because of its unpopularity with various factions in her own party and outside it.

Hence the efforts of backbench MPs to attempt to break the deadlock via a series of indicative votes – including the Beckett amendment, which compels the government to hold a people’s vote on the eventual terms of Brexit, whatever they may be. Increasingly, public opinion is turning against Brexit as the harsh realities of its consequences become known and understood; and a second referendum looks to be the only sensible way out of the stalemate prevailing in parliament.

If the government refuses to act on the wishes of the House of Commons then it will be a foolish move indeed – and MPs can, in extremis, impose their will on the executive through a variety of means. It would be much better if, for example, the government was prepared to engage with MPs on the issue of softening the red lines arbitrarily drawn up by Ms May; and if the government was courageous enough to take its case to the country.

The time and space for that to happen would be granted, under the strict condition of a Final Say referendum, by both the opposition parties and the European Union. A long delay in order to define the political future of the UK is inevitable.

Whoever takes over from Theresa May (whenever that happens) must understand some fundamental lessons from recent months.

First, the British cannot have their cake and eat it, and Europe has its own demands and red lines. We have to learn to accommodate them. This is diplomacy, not “surrender”.

Second, there is a vast disparity in power between the UK and an economic and political bloc around 10 times larger, and on which it relies for half its export trade.

Third, a general election under a new Tory leader will resolve little on the European question. It would most probably leave most of the factions and troublemakers precisely where they are today; it would be fought on issues other than the EU anyway; it would most likely return another hung parliament; and it would alter none of the arguments. Public consent for what is being done in their name will still be lacking, whether the new prime minister is Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Corbyn, Chuka Umunna or Paddington Bear.

The British people, not the Tory party or even our MPs, are the ones who will have to sort this out.