Can any one help with this sentence structure?

[susanna]

How much less were they going to be able to introduce it with a government on the brink of falling, the nation on the edge of war and the country radically opposed to any move which would seem to the electorate to threaten the long established traditions of the British way of life.

This sentence can be regarded as an exclamation sentence?If so, the order should be"how much less they were going to be ..."

If the sentence is regarded as a reversion, I can't find the evidence of reversion beginning with "how much less", though I know we can reverse the sentence if "still less" is at the beginning.


Can anyone help me with the main clause sentence structure? Thx a lot.

[susanna]

Is there any grammar rules that denote this phenomenon?