THERE is so much uncertainty just now in British politics that your average newspaper columnist often finds that events have overtaken the contents of an article before you’ve even finished writing it, never mind by the time it’s published.

So it’s a moot question whether Theresa May will still be Prime Minister by the end of this week. Following from the Prime Minister’s shameful speech on Wednesday last week – during which she blamed MPs for the mess that she herself has created – and her abject humiliation in Brussels the following day, there are yet again swirling rumours of cabinet plots to oust her and the talk is that her time as leader of the British government is at an end. Although that does raise the interesting philosophical conundrum – can a bin fire have a leader?

Things are now so bad that grown up and serious people say that the answer is Michael Gove. We’re in a mess, so the solution is to hand the country over to the man who said that people are fed up with experts.

We’re being dragged out of the EU against our will and a significant body of influential opinion in the British establishment wants that to happen under Prime Minister Michael Gove. This is the man who claimed that the day after a vote to leave the EU, the UK would hold all the cards and would be able to choose the path it wanted. How’s that working out for you Michael? If the answer to the question is Michael Gove, then the question itself can only be: “just how screwed are we?”

The news of the attempted cabinet coup broke on Saturday night and was followed on Sunday by attempts from British government ministers to downplay the rumours. David Lidington, the man who was identified by some as an interim Prime Minister until the Tory party can hold a leadership election, went on the TV to stress that he wasn’t involved in any coup plans and that he thought that Theresa May was doing a fantastic job. Which only goes to show that there are indeed British politicians who are even more removed from reality than Theresa May is.

If you can hear a distant thudding noise at this juncture, that’s me and hundreds of thousands of other people banging our heads off the nearest hard surface until the resultant concussion makes this development appear semi-sensible. Thank you, Better Together, for your fear campaign that kept Scotland in the UK. Now we’ve all got something to be really scared of.

As the British government suffered fresh meltdown, over 1 million people took to the streets of London to call for another referendum and over 5m have signed an online petition calling on the House of Commons to revoke Article 50. Although it’s a massive demonstration that huge swathes of the British public do not agree with Theresa May’s assertion that she’s on our side, the petition and demonstration will have as much effect on changing her direction as tossing a pebble into the Amazon and thinking it will divert the river.

Theresa May doesn’t do listening. She doesn’t do empathy, and she most certainly doesn’t allow herself to be influenced by trivial little matters like facts, or votes in the House of Commons.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon addressed the London rally, and was received with cheers from an ecstatic crowd.

There were some predictably snide comments to the effect that she wouldn’t have received such a positive reaction from a massive crowd in London had she been talking about Scottish independence.

There were also some predictable remarks from people in Scotland about the First Minister’s willingness to address a rally in London concerned with ensuring that people throughout the UK get a chance to vote again on EU membership and her apparent reluctance to address a rally in Glasgow or Edinburgh concerned with ensuring that people in Scotland get a chance to vote again on independence.

There are fears amongst sections of the independence movement that a focus on ensuring that Brexit is prevented weakens the mandate for another independence referendum.

These fears are misplaced. It’s important that Scotland’s First Minister is seen to oppose a Brexit which damages Scotland’s interests and which Scotland voted heavily to reject.

Her opposition to Brexit also demonstrates to soft No voters that she is working for them and not just to bring about independence. It shows that the priority of the Scottish Government is to work in the interests of Scotland. It is agreed by all but a tiny minority of Scottish opinion that any form of Brexit will damage Scotland’s economy, put jobs and investment at risk and will make Scotland a less attractive place for people to live just at a time when the looming demographic time bomb makes it imperative that Scotland continues to attract inward migration.

This means that if and when Brexit happens, those voters will be more open to persuasion on the topic of independence, as they will have seen for themselves that the Scottish Government did its utmost to ensure that Brexit didn’t happen.

However, more importantly, even if we do manage to forestall Brexit entirely, that will not mean that there is no longer any mandate for another independence vote.

The way in which the British Government has treated Scotland throughout the Brexit process all by itself has created the material change in circumstances which justifies another independence referendum.

The way in which Theresa May and her allies have used Brexit as an excuse to undermine the devolution settlement, their refusal to take the interests of Scotland on board, and the utter contempt which they have displayed towards the Scottish Parliament demonstrate that this British state is not the partnership of nations which Scotland signed up to in 2014.

Opponents of Scottish independence can no longer argue that Scotland is a partner in a union.

Brexit has revealed the truth about the nature of the British state. It is a unitary state with devolved bits which remain subordinate to the centre.

The only certainty left in British politics is the certainty that bin fire Britain is constitutionally incapable of respecting the needs and concerns of Scotland.