Theresa May must put an end to Brexit groundhog day – by backing a Final Say

Albert Einstein had better things to do than get himself elected to the British parliament. Still, his often-quoted remark (possibly apocryphal) that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results” deserves to be displayed in very large letters across the chamber of the House of Commons, preferably in the direct eyeline of the prime minister.

How many times has Theresa May been to Brussels, asked for a change to the Irish backstop and been told “no” in a wide variety of the 24 official languages of the European Union?

How many times has she asked the Irish government for a sweetheart deal and been told to get real? How many times has she begged the Democratic Unionists and the hard men and women of the European Research Group to help her out, and emerged disappointed?

How many times has she asked the Germans to help her out? After Chequers, after the Salzburg summit, before the Christmas vote that was pulled, and after new year when the Commons held its historic meaningful vote, the prime minister has been offered miniscule offerings from Europe only to have them thrown back in her face over and again by the House.

That game’s up.

Ms May must be mad, literally driven deranged by this process. She appears to be in “meltdown” mode, as some headlines have it. Tribal and stubborn – not the same thing as statesmanship – she is not serving herself, her party or the country well in persisting with her plan.

It is as if she is hallucinating that she has a healthy overall majority. The talks have failed. Her policy has failed. Brexit has failed. It is as well to face up to such truths.

Meantime, she continues to make a fundamental error of strategy – to press on with the futile task of appeasing her unappeasable Eurosceptic wing and the adamantine Ulster unionists.

She is gambling, against all evidence of the 230-majority against it last week, that some different forms of words and further “legal context” from Brussels will be sufficient to swing MPs behind the UK-EU withdrawal agreement.

Another letter of goodwill from presidents Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker will not do the trick. It is the greatest effort to flog a dead horse since the supermarkets were caught putting horsemeat in their frozen cottage pies, and no more appetising.

Ms May is so determined to stick to Plan A that she proposes to carry on doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results, until it is too late.

It is possible Ms May has a cunning tactical aim to run the clock down, and force MPs, that is of a Remain persuasion, as well as some Brexiteers, to choose between her deal and the disastrous no deal.

The problem with that, however, is sooner or later no deal will be ruled out by the House of Commons because it is the only proposition that commands a clear and easy majority. That would then make the current, ridiculously short, timetable for Brexit untenable.

That, in turn, will force an extension of Article 50, and the only circumstance in which the EU will permit that is if a Final Say referendum is the end point for the decision-making process.

Most of the “concessions” she offered to MPs were repeated announcements, trivial in scope or lacking legal force. As Anna Soubry said, they are “not good enough”. To be fair to the prime minister, there was one positive and entirely novel decision in her statement, which was to waive the offensive fees the Home Office has been charging for EU citizens registering for “settled” status.

Even there, though, Ms May acted only when it grew apparent the £65 charge (£32.50 for children) would be yet another PR blunder. The new register still makes EU citizens in Britain feel second class, and rather less willing to stay in the UK to, ironically, help support the economy if Brexit ever happens.

For older migrants from Europe into the UK, for example in the aftermath of the Second World War or from the former colonies of Cyprus and Malta, and who have not acquired British citizenship, this has the makings of another Windrush scandal.

The other more welcome consequence of the prime minister’s statement is that it draws attention to the mess Brexit is now in, and shows that parliament, guided by this prime minister, cannot clear it up.

Nor can it be cleared up by the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, who seems to think a general election will be held if he puts down enough votes of no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government.

No Einstein himself, Mr Corbyn should learn that the usual effect of these is to unite the Conservative benches in their enjoyment of a knockabout speech by Michael Gove.

That, though, is their sole attraction for anyone.

And so the prime minister books another RAF jet for Brussels and, who knows, The Hague, Dublin or Berlin in her search for the elusive answer to the Irish backstop… Never has so much aviation fuel been burned by a British prime minister to so little effect.

Yet this is about more than Ms May’s carbon footprint; it is making global Britain a global joke.

So we need to call an end to groundhog day. As today’s events make clear, once again, the only way to break the deadlock is to allow the British people their democratic right to a Final Say referendum on Brexit. It is the sane thing to do.