It's only a week since the country voted in the European elections. But even in politics, where weeks are famously long, this one has been extraordinarily full.

Theresa May’s goodbye, the Brexit Party’s hello, the Tory leadership race, Jeremy Corbyn’s epic dithering, Scottish Labour’s decay, and plans for Indyref2. 

The kaleidoscope has been well and truly shaken, and we still have a hot and bumpy summer ahead of us. 

It’s too early to say what the long-term effects will be. Brexit has been temporarily rendered long-term null and void as a political concept.

But there are some fascinating clues around. 

When Nicola Sturgeon held a photo call with her new MEPs on Monday, she was as happy and relaxed as I’ve ever seen her, and with good reason.

Not only had the SNP clocked in at 38 per cent in the EU elections, a remarkable result for a party a dozen years in power, but Labour had hit the skids and come fifth on a risible 9%. 

They were in “existential territory”, the First Minister said. No-one knew what they stood for any more. The clear implication was that a future vote for Labour was a wasted one.

The UK Tories were also helping her. Their rout at the hands of Nigel Farage had led to an instant over-reaction as leadership hopefuls lurched to no-deal. 

It played straight into another SNP trope – that those crazy Tories are about to install Boris Johnson in Downing Street and leave the EU without a deal and the UK without a prayer.

Ms Sturgeon’s list of reasons to vote Yes just kept growing and growing.
Scottish Labour then did what it does best, and started fighting itself.

Two frontbenchers quit – one citing the “toxic” atmosphere in the Holyrood group he was himself meant to discipline, the other a Remainer sick of his party’s muddle on the issue – and suddenly it seemed like Richard Leonard’s leadership was in doubt.

It’s true that Mr Leonard, his party’s ninth leader since devolution, has been a Titanic dud since he arrived on a pro-Corbyn wave in November 2017.

You don’t stand out in a busy room by dressing like the wallpaper. Yet in a crowded political field he seems to have gone out of his way to avoid a profile. His has been a sort of anti-leadership. 

Many MSPs despair of his slavish aping of the Corbyn line.

The autonomy his predecessors won for the Scottish operation has been set aside as if it were unseemly, a sign of disloyalty to the boss. However, he remains in post because no-one else wants the job. “What is there left to lead?” observes one Labour MSP.

It must have seemed the prime time for the FM to publish her referendum bill. But the panicky aftermath of the European election didn’t last long. Hard facts soon reasserted themselves. 

Commons Speaker John Bercow stomped on any idea of a no-deal Brexit getting past MPs. The basic arithmetic hadn’t changed. The EU ruled out a swift renegotiation. The Brexiter ultras were brought back down with a bump.

Tory leadership hopefuls also quickly ruled out giving  Ms Sturgeon the extra power she needs to turn a theoretical Indyref2 into a legally sound reality.

Her lifeless bill may play well with her base, but it is essentially an election stunt for 2021. No PM, of whatever stripe, has an incentive to give Ms Sturgeon her vote. There is nothing in it for them. There is only another huge complication to add to Brexit, and the possibility of an early exit from No 10.

She will have no takers.

Ruth Davidson’s plan for 2021 is to try and repeat the trick of the last general election – uniting the anti-SNP vote as the true party of the Union. 

Given the Tory chaos down south, expect her party to morph into a full-on personality cult, promoting “Ruth!” while burying its name in the fine print. 

In the short term, Scottish Labour’s collapse helps her pitch, but ultimately it also weakens the Union, as the party has been its bulwark for decades.

Little wonder the SNP have spent so much time and effort wooing Labour voters into their column in a bid to bring them round to independence. That assiduous effort is now paying off.  

There will be no independence referendum any time soon, but deeper trends, especially Labour’s decline, may be going the SNP’s way. The longer term, if it still exists, could be intriguing.