Parliament begins to eat itself with no Brexit resolution on horizon

We’ve reached the point where only four diagnoses are now left. The prime minister is in a delusional, psychotic state and is in urgent need of help. Or the prime minister is focused purely on her own short-term survival: even she can’t be so far gone as to believe she has a long-term future. Or the prime minister is a sleeper agent for a hostile government committed to the destruction of the UK. Or the prime minister is totally incompetent.

Examine the evidence of the last few weeks. First, she is incapable of keeping almost every commitment she gives: it is now safer to plan for the opposite of what she says will happen. Then she goes to the EU summit and manages to come away with an even worse deal than the already bad one she had secured.

And now she has announced the government will be spending £4bn in preparing for a no-deal Brexit that it openly admits it doesn’t want and would be extremely damaging. So rather than do the obvious thing of ruling it out and donating the spare cash to building several hospitals, Theresa May has got Chris Failing Grayling to book extra lorry spaces on cross-Channel ferries and man-boy Matt Hancock to buy a load of fridges in the Curry’s sale. Too little and too late, but all in the faint hope of scaring MPs into voting for her lame-duck deal.

What’s left is paralysis. In the absence of a meaningful vote – why would you want to spoil Christmas when there are still over 100 days to go before the UK leaves the EU? – parliament has been reduced to filling the dead air with meaningless debate. Not that many MPs necessarily object to that, as there is nothing they like more than to be given the chance to repeat the same thing they said the day before at greater length, but it doesn’t do much for anyone’s self-esteem. Despair hangs like a choking smog in Westminster.

There are few cabinet ministers better suited to acts of extreme pointlessness than Gavin Williamson. The defence secretary makes Hancock look positively statesmanlike, so it was entirely fitting he was sent out to waste an hour of everyone’s time with a statement on his much-delayed report into modernising Britain’s defence capabilities. A report that ran to all of 28 pages, including 10 pages of adverts for photos of Airfix models that Williamson needed to complete his collection.

Please take me seriously, pleaded Pte Pike as MPs on both sides of the house started sniggering. No one could. No one ever can. Not even his own family. In desperation, Williamson started threatening to unleash 3,500 troops as part of his department’s contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit. They’ll shoot to kill any Jerries that get in their way, Pike shouted. Don’t mention the war! Labour’s shadow defence secretary, Nia Griffith, gently reminded him that the 3,500 troops in his playpen were actually made of plastic.

As there wasn’t much else left for it to do, parliament began to eat itself. The shadow leader, Valerie Vaz, understandably cringed as she was instructed by Jeremy Corbyn to raise a point of order to ask why the government had failed to react meaningfully to Labour’s futile gesture of a meaningless expression of no confidence in the prime minister, at which point the SNP’s Angus Brendan MacNeil raised a second point of order asking if he could table a vote of no confidence in the opposition. Several Labour MPs looked happy to back that one.

Then came a three-hour emergency debate to give MPs yet another chance to debate Brexit. Just as they had done the day before. And the day before that. What they weren’t going to get was any resolution. This was more some kind of Brexit Anonymous group therapy session.

“My name’s Ian and I’m a Brexit addict,” said the SNP leader Ian Blackford.

“Hi Ian,” everyone replied.

“It’s all shit and I feel completely powerless over Brexit,” Blackford said.

“Thank you for sharing. My name’s Stephen Bartley ... ” said the Brexit secretary.

“It’s an anonymous programme. But your name is Stephen Barclay,” the Speaker interrupted.

“Is it? My name’s Stephen and my job is to know nothing about anything.”

“You’re doing brilliantly,” everyone said encouragingly. Bartley beamed. He was never happier than when even he didn’t know who he was.

“My name’s Keir and I am embarrassed that Labour is in such a mess over Brexit and is unable to provide any opposition.” said Keir Starmer. “I wish I wasn’t here.” A sentiment with which everyone could agree.