What it's like to watch a Westminster drama unfold in front of your eyes

There’s something about Westminster on a night of drama like Tuesday’s catastrophic defeat for Theresa May’s Brexit deal. The tension builds as you count down the hours to the critical vote.

You see MPs plotting in little huddles, sometimes in dark alcoves. Eagle-eyed whips patrol the carpeted corridors and the bars. They even search the “members only” loos when the vote finally arrives.

Sometimes it ends in anti-climax, with the government narrowly escaping defeat. Not this week. Everyone knew May would lose the crunch vote. But few, myself included, thought it would be by a record 230 votes. I had guessed 120.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a front row seat for the past 37 years, which makes me the longest-serving lobby correspondent – not a label I particularly want. The last 20 years have been with The Independent, 17 as political editor and now as political commentator.

I was in a scrum of 100 journalists in a Commons corridor when the Tory leadership election result was read out in 1990. Margaret Thatcher had beaten Michael Heseltine in the first round, but not by the 15 per cent margin needed to knock him out. “She’s finished,” I blurted out. On this occasion, I got it right.

Two years later came the rollercoaster of Black Wednesday, when the UK was forced out of the European exchange rate mechanism. Interest rates jumped to 15 per cent. My abiding memory of this analogue era moment is senior cabinet ministers learning about the financial market turmoil from a transistor radio. They had decamped from Downing Street due to building work.

Then there was the 2003 Iraq War debate, and Robin Cook’s electrifying late-night resignation speech. Some 139 Labour MPs voted against Tony Blair, more than the 118 who defied May this week, but he won with Tory support.

On Tuesday, the audible gasps of MPs when the voting figures were read out said it all. It was as dramatic a moment as I have witnessed. I think it was the enormity of Brexit – the UK’s biggest challenge since the Second World War, with its very future at stake.

Let’s hope the Brexit drama reaches is final act soon. On the other hand...

Yours,

Andrew Grice

Political commentator