Theresa May drags herself in for ritual update on lack of Brexit progress | John Crace

Weak, depressed and despondent. That was just the government benches as the prime minister came to the Commons to make a statement on last week’s EU council. This now-ritual update on the continued lack of progress in the Brexit negotiations has become as painful for the Conservative party as it has for the prime minister.

Theresa May dragged herself to her feet and tried to pretend that what had been uppermost in her mind in Brussels had been the situation in Turkey and the Iran nuclear deal. Almost as an afterthought she got on to Brexit.

Her Florence speech had been wonderful. And it wasn’t just her that was saying that; it was also a couple of people in her cabinet. She wanted a deep and special relationship with the EU. So deep and so special that she said it three times. So deep and so special it might end up as barely a relationship at all. “I am positive,” she concluded in a voice that bordered on the deep and special catatonic.

Jeremy Corbyn shrugged. If it was OK for the prime minister to give the same non-statement she had given on several previous occasions, it was OK for him to give the same Groundhog Day reply. The talks were at an impasse because the cabinet couldn’t even agree among itself what kind of deal it wanted. It was time for the Tories to put their squabbling behind them and to prioritise the needs of British business. He has said this so often now that no one finds it the slightest bit bizarre that the Labour leader now claims to be voice of business. Strange times.

Britain wants to discuss its future trading relationship with the EU because 44% of UK exports go to, and 53% of imports come from, the EU 27 countries. Post-Brexit conditions of trade could, therefore, have a major effect on Britain’s economy.

The World Bank estimates UK trade with the EU in goods and services could fall by 50% and 62% respectively if no trade deal is agreed after Brexit, against 12% and 16% if the UK stays in the single market through a Norway-style agreement.

Clean Brexit campaigners say the shortfall can be offset through more trade with non-EU countries, but those who argue the UK must retain close links with the single market doubt this, certainly any time soon. Both groups want certainty.

However, the EU27’s negotiating guidelines for the two-year Brexit talks say discussion of the “framework” of a future relationship can only take place in phase two of the talks, once “sufficient progress” has been made on the separation phase and particularly the UK’s exit bill.

“What I set out to the EU was what I set out in my Florence speech,” said Theresa. The moment she goes off script, all her syntactical operations slide into the most basic of operating codes. About all she can manage is to repeat the things she has already repeated. On the grounds that if she has said something twice it is more likely to be true if she says it three times.

There was definitely momentum because some progress had been made towards progressing the progression of the talks. But let her be absolutely clear about something about which she was absolutely clear. If no final deal had been reached by this time next year then there would be no transitional deal. Because sometimes what business really needed was the certainty that it would be out of business. Far better to know you are going to be bankrupt and 100% British than risk the prospect of not being broke with traces of the EU.

While the Labour benches opened and closed their mouths in amazement at the prime minister’s cavalier approach to the economy, the Conservative benches just used the rest of the session to bicker among themselves. All pretence that there is any agreement over Brexit has long gone. Ken Clarke suggested the prime minister might be better off jettisoning half the cabinet and forming a national coalition with the opposition benches instead and Anna Soubry – trying and failing to keep the condescension out of her voice as she commended Theresa for the progress she had made – begged her to rule out a no deal.

This was too much for John Redwood who urged Theresa to move straight to World Trade Organisation rules now. It hasn’t yet dawned on some Tories that there’s a very good reason why there is not one country in the entire world that has chosen to trade on WTO rules alone. Dozens of deranged Brexiters roared their approval at Britain becoming worse off than Mongolia and Mauritania.

As the divisions in her party widened by the minute, the Maybot became ever less functional. Realising his leader was running on empty, Bernard Jenkin gallantly came to the rescue. Some people in the EU might think she was really weak and useless, he said. But he didn’t think she was as weak and as useless as all that. She was just a bit moderately rubbish.

With this unexpected vote of confidence, what little remaining confidence the Maybot had deserted her. Where were the pot plants when she needed them? They at least had really understood her pain. All that was left to her was to talk in tautology. An implementation period was a period of implementation. The government was going for the best deal that would be the best deal the government could get. It may have been meaningless but at least no one could contradict her. Small steps and all that.