SO that’s it then? The UK Government’s Brexit lead negotiator resigns. Two low-ranking members of the government resign. The politician with the biggest ego in Britain resigns (that’s Boris in case you think Jacob Rees-Mogg has just taken a dive).

And reliable sources suggest the required 48 letters from Conservative MPs to the chair of the 1922 Committee, expressing no confidence in the Prime Minister’s leadership have been received.

This causes the value of the pound to plummet (still further).

And then ... nothing much happens. Despite talk of a vote of no confidence, a possible snap election or a general Brexiteer mutiny, life rolls on, even though the fragile coalition behind the Conservative Party has evidently collapsed over Theresa May’s unworkable Chequers “deal”.

What is occurring?

Bizarrely, Prime Ministers Questions yesterday was positively low-key. Of course the Prime Minister herself was not answering questions (what’s new?). She was conveniently absent – in Brussels at a NATO summit. That meant she didn’t have to answer questions about the right wing credentials of her new Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab (who thinks food bank users have a “cashflow problem”); she didn’t have to deny reports that her government is stockpiling processed food to cope with a no deal Brexit; nor did she have to explain why Remain voting Scots should stop planning for a second independence referendum, as the only way to escape from Britain’s incompetent, self-harming political Union.

Except of course, that none of these questions were asked.

Why not?

Why take the foot off the political accelerator now?

Actually the weekend’s resignations seem to have caught almost everyone on the back foot. The LibDems have proposed “a government of national unity” to support Theresa May – giving Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters the chance to accuse Vince Cable of sniffing after ministerial office in a coup by the neoliberal centre aimed at side-lining Labour under the guise of attacking the Tories hard-right Brexiteers. Anti-Brexit campaigners, though, warn that if the Labour leadership wants support, Corbyn will have to come out clearly and unambiguously in favour of Remain.

Meanwhile, it seems discretion is the better part of valour for Scottish Conservatives. Ruth Davidson has gone to ground. Fluffy has gone to ground. And although the Brexiteers have reportedly got the 48 signatures needed for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May, their erstwhile leader Jacob Rees-Mogg seems to think “now is not the time” to move decisively against Theresa May’s leadership.

And that matters.

Effectively, only Tory MPs can start the “vote of no confidence” procedure. There must be 15% of Conservative MPs writing to the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, (that’s 48 out of 316 Tory MPs) with the committee then deciding whether or not to hold a vote of all Conservative MPs and May would need half – 159 – to support her to stay in power. If she can she’ll be immune from another challenge for 12 months. But if a new government with the support of the majority of MPs cannot be formed within 14 calendar days, Parliament will be dissolved and an early General Election is triggered.

So a motion of no confidence triggered by the opposition, will have little chance of succeeding. There needs to be a full-blooded Tory revolt which in turn would need to a clear Brexit strategy and a clear champion for that strategy to lead the Tories into a fresh election. None of the above is in place. The betting odds site Oddschecker has Home Secretary Sajid Javid as the favourite to replace Theresa May as the next Conservative leader even though he’s only been in position since April, after Amber Rudd resigned over the Windrush scandal. The astonishingly two-faced Environment Secretary Michael Gove, is the second favourite and the pucker right-winger Jacob Rees-Mogg, (chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group), is third.

Wow. With lacklustre and divisive candidates like these, Theresa May almost looks magisterial and according to some analysts, the existential threat facing the government may actually have strengthened her hand.

Former Tory leader William Hague, has warned Tory MPs “with their pens hovering over letters demanding a vote of no confidence” to think about the risk of an even softer Brexit (or none at all) should Theresa May be toppled.

The Tory grandee has called on Brexiteer MPs to accept the “harsh truth” that pursuing a hard Brexit would likely fail to clear the Commons, risks thousands of job losses and threaten peace in Northern Ireland and has urged them instead to adopt Michael Gove’s “realist” position and support the Chequers proposals.

Never mind that this Chequers fudge leaves service industries (the majority in Scotland) dangling without agreement, that there is no IT equipment in place to let UK authorities collect tariffs on behalf of the EU and that European leaders are still unlikely to accept an unworkable fudge which might tempt other members into similar hissy-fit walkouts.

But the situation is by no means resolved.

Newspapers have this week reported that arch Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg has laid down four amendments to the government’s Customs Bill next week which would wreck the Chequers deal. He is unlikely to succeed without Labour support but the attack from her own Brexit critics gives Theresa May and her supporters a taste of the open warfare she can expect when the Commons resumes this autumn.

And there’s more to come.

Last week, leaks revealed that the UK Electoral Commission believes the official Vote Leave campaign, backed by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, broke legal spending limits during the Brexit referendum. If that’s true, Vote Leave will face a fine and possible criminal charges. English Remain campaigners will then urge the UK Government to annul the result of the referendum. But that’s unlikely to happen, even though Vote Leave stands accused of committing a premeditated, criminal attack on British democracy. Britain is currently being “led” by a wheezing, breathless wreck of a government making crazy, desperate decisions. But nothing can be done, lest it sets off the ailing Conservative patient.

This is the mess facing every mainstream party at Westminster – bar one.

There is no need for the SNP to play the game. No need for Ian Blackford to pull his punches or abandon the impressive campaign gamely rolled out in recent weeks, asserting Scotland’s right to call a second independence referendum.

British democracy is falling to pieces before our very eyes. Scotland must respond.