May’s latest Brexit wheeze dooms the Tories

After seven hours of intensive effort, forbidden access to their mobile telephones – a deprivation that would have driven most teenagers into the arms of the Samaritans – the body that, with no apparent sense of irony, describes itself as the British Cabinet endorsed the latest ploy by Theresa May to prolong her futile premiership.

The Prime Minister proposes to sit down with Jeremy Corbyn, a penitential exercise very much in tune with the season of Lent, and work out a joint plan for Brexit. If that exercise proves fruitless (though what could possibly go wrong?), then the House of Commons will be invited to vote on a series of Brexit options, with May pledging to abide by the decision of MPs, so long as Labour agrees to do so as well.

There is, of course, one non-negotiable condition attached to this offer: any eventual outcome must also include Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement. For this bizarre proposal the Prime Minister will request a further short extension of Article 50 from the EU, in the hope of avoiding participation in next month’s European elections. How the EU will respond to that, especially Emmanuel Macron, is anybody’s guess. So, where does this latest exciting development leave us?

With the likelihood of having imposed on us a Brexit pseudo-deal even more grotesque than May’s Frankenstein confection is the answer. If Corbyn makes a contribution it will involve permanent membership of the Customs Union. Bye-bye independent British trade deals. As for what wrecking elements the Commons might introduce into the package, the past week has provided an insight into the kind of extravagances that MPs regard as compatible with Brexit.

Ten days before the present Brexit deadline the government is indulging in a cut-and-paste operation with all the most Remainer elements in Parliament, to graft onto May’s appalling “deal” more fetters that would shackle us to the European Union for all time, though without representation. All that can confidently be predicted about the Heath-Robinson construct that must emerge from this Remainer carnival of destruction is that it would be even further removed from Brexit than the status quo.

At the same time, the extravagantly entitled Yvette Cooper is trying, with the encouragement of Speaker Bercow, to bulldoze through parliament in a single day an amateurish, appallingly drafted bill to rule out no deal. The last vestiges of convention and good order have been overthrown by the Remainer insurgency in the Commons.

Meanwhile, out in the real world, attitudes are hardening. The latest ComRes poll shows 92 per cent of Leave voters feel betrayed by the political class and so do two-thirds of voters on both sides of the divide; 57 per cent of the public now support a No Deal exit on 12 April – a higher proportion than the 52 per cent of those voting who mandated Brexit in 2016.

They might as well not exist. The erroneous doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty – a self-interested misinterpretation of the writings of Edmund Burke – has gone giddily to the heads of MPs, intoxicated by the notion of their own privilege. The equation is around 500 Remainer MPs in opposition to 17.4 million voters and now 57 per cent of the general public. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Today marked a tipping point in the prospects of the Conservative Party. It was the last chance of survival for that party. Imagine if Theresa May had emerged from Number 10 at 6pm and announced: “We have tried very hard to pass my deal. We have even seen the House of Commons take control of parliamentary business and fail to pass a single indicative motion. We now have no option but to end this debilitating struggle and leave the EU on WTO terms on 12 April.”

The relief across large parts of the nation would have been palpable. By finally ending the impasse, May could have won forgiveness for all her previous failings and attempted to unite the country in the effort to make a success of Brexit on WTO terms – a free, sovereign nation once again. Remainers would have screamed blue murder but history would have been kind to her. And there would still have been a Tory party after the next election.

Instead, we have been betrayed yet again, with another squalid surrender to the EU and the Remainer oligarchy in Parliament. This crisis is now about a lot more than Brexit, crucial though that issue is: it is about who runs Britain, Parliament or people? If the elites succeed in blocking a clean, recognizable Brexit they will provoke a constitutional struggle of unknowable scope and consequences. Only one thing is certain: this will end badly.