SHE came, she saw, she certainly didn’t conquer. Theresa May’s diplomatic perambulations to the Trump White House and strongman Erdogan’s Turkey were meant to signal Britain’s new, post-Brexit imperial status. Actually, despite the vacuous London media hype, the Prime Minister and her rocky regime were exposed as having no emperor’s clothes whatsoever.

The BBC was only too anxious to repeat ad nauseam that May was the very first Western leader Trump saw through the doors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But that was only because there weren’t many folk in the queue. Most sensible EU leaders, like Angela Mergel, were reluctant to show obsequiousness to America’s Little Mussolini, especially in his first week in office. All the British Prime Minister achieved was to feed The Donald’s ego and burnish his threadbare reputation as a statesman.

While May was having her hand held by Trump – a patronising and deeply sexist move by the 45th President and reality TV personality – there was real power-broking going on elsewhere.

Trump’s first international phone call on taking the oath of office was not to Downing Street but to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Famously, Netanyahu did not get on with Barack Obama, who took a dim view of Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements. Trump was desperate to reassure the Israeli Prime Minister that the White House is now on a different wavelength. Israel has already started to reciprocate with Netanyahu offering public support for Trump’s daft Mexican wall. Netanyahu gets the full red carpet treatment in Washington next month where the mutual embraces will be a good deal more effusive than a limp hand-holding.

Theresa May’s biggest worry with Trump is the latter’s ambivalent attitude to Nato and his desire to cosy up to Vladimir Putin. May claimed to have won a commitment from Trump to remain foursquare behind the Nato alliance but from the President himself there came only a cheesy grin. And no sooner had May left than the White House issued an executive order banning Muslims from a number of Middle Eastern countries from entering the US – thus proving that the PM has had no impact whatsoever on the illiberal juggernaut that has captured America (albeit with a minority of the popular vote).

FOR dessert, the Prime Minister flew on to post-coup Turkey to lecture President Erdogan on his habit of locking up journalists. For some reason, senior British ministers still believe that visiting a foreign head of state and delivering patronising homilies about their inattention to human rights results in said foreigners jumping smartly to attention, apologising for their misdeeds, then buying more of our arms. True, May was able to claim that Turkey was offering hard cash to buy British aircraft technology. But this was actually old news reheated – the arrangement with BAE was decided in 2015. And a close look at the small print shows this is yet another fire sale of British knowhow – not hardware – on the cheap. Besides, if Saudi Arabia’s bombing of Yemen back into the Stone Age is anything to go by, collaborating with Turkey on building fighter jets will eventually mean more misery for the Kurds.

The real problem with Theresa May’s brief diplomatic foray to America and Turkey is that it adds to the self-delusion that is gripping her administration and Tory MPs. Post-Brexit, they have talked themselves into believing that the UK is on the brink of a new imperial era. In this dream world, quick bilateral trade deals with the US and old Commonwealth will boost economic growth and prosperity. An Anglo-American co-dominium will restore order to the world. And with sovereignty returned to Westminster from those pesky bureaucrats in Brussels, we will bask in a new era of parliamentary democracy – assuming somebody coughs up the estimated £4 billion need to stop the crumbling edifice that is the Palace of Westminster from collapsing.

Stark reality is very different. Last week the Supreme Court humiliated the Government by telling them in no uncertain terms that it was plain illegal to try and trigger Article 50 (initiating Brexit talks with the EU) simply by ministerial fiat. Something called a vote in parliament was actually required. Rather than learn the lesson that democracy has everything to do with open debate, the May Government is now trying to use a so called “fast track” procedure to ram home a one-line bill giving the PM the executive power to trigger Article 50. Other parliamentary business is being cancelled to provide room for this outrageous manoeuvre.

When this travesty of democracy was initiated on late Thursday afternoon, most MPs had gone home. Fortunately a bevy of SNP troopers were still on hand to ensure there was some debate. The deputy speaker looked a trifle nervous when faced by the palpable anger of MPs complaining that House procedures were being manipulated so the Government could ram through the Brexit Bill. Tory leader of the House, diminutive David Lidington, ignored MPs and chatted away with his mates. There was not one jot of humility from him following the Supreme Court ruling. Lidington’s PhD thesis was on penal statutes in Elizabethan England. His demeanour on Thursday suggested he still believes in the Divine Right of Kings.

What happens next? May will doubtless get her one-line Brexit Bill through but with lots of metaphorical blood on the Commons green carpet. The rush is so she can meet her self-imposed deadline of triggering Article 50 by the end of March. She will get her Brexit Bill passed because – for unfathomable reasons – Jeremy Corbyn has imposed a three-line whip on Labour MPs to give it support.

Expect rebellions – perhaps enough to force the wobbly Labour front bench to change its mind. Leading the Labour rebellion is a resurrected Chris Bryant, old Brownite and shadow chancellor until Corbyn arrived on the scene.

However, we are in uncharted parliamentary waters. One reading of May’s long-awaited Brexit negotiating plan a fortnight ago is that she is preparing the grounds for a general election should a suitable deal fail to materialise with the EU. If the UK is forced back on WTO trading rules – which would be economically disastrous – the Lords will make mincemeat of the yet-to-come Great Repeal Bill. That’s the one that temporarily repackages EU directives as UK law, the better to water them down.

In which case, May calls an election on the grounds that the peoples’ will is being “thwarted” by the unelected Lords. That will rout Labour and leave the Tories in charge for another decade.

Before we get that far, Labour has to defend two crucial by-elections on February 23. These are in Stoke-on-Trent and Copeland in Cumbria. One senior Labour backbencher told me that if they lose both, “the parliamentary party will declare independence from Jeremy within the week”. For which reason, the Corbynistas will fight hard to retain the seats, especially in Stoke where Ukip leader Paul “Nutter” Nuttall is standing.

Meanwhile, of course, it is the disciplined ranks of the SNP group at Westminster who are providing the real anti-Brexit leadership. Which raises a question: if Labour did fragment soon in the Commons, who would form the official opposition?