We’re heading for a weird coalition, Gove as PM, no deal, or no Brexit, maybe

Welcome to the most historic week since the last most historic week. It’s sure to be historic. But what will happen exactly? Hold on. I can see the outcome through the fog. It’s… it’s… Sue Pollard from Hi de Hi as Prime Minister with Roy Hattersley as Foreign Secretary and they have a plan to divide Britain down the middle. East Britain will remain in the EU. And West Britain will leave. Belfast will become the new capital of a united Ireland. In Britain, a hard border right down the centre of the country with a Donald Trump-style wall will be mandatory and will, unfortunately, run right through the middle of David Cameron’s shepherd’s hut in Oxfordshire.

I should explain that Sue Pollard, a 1980s “TV personality”, was at a Number 10 party berating or advising Theresa May about Brexit last week, for some reason. Meanwhile, Lord Hattersley has resurfaced to back a second referendum. My idea of this pair uniting to take over from parliament and the cabinet is silly, but no more silly than quite a lot of the ideas doing the rounds at Westminster right now.

So where are we, and what happens next? No-one has a Scooby (Scooby Doo = clue) and anyone pretending to know is lying. In a bid to be helpful, while we wait for the meltdown, here’s my Q&A guide to the possibilities.

Who is Oliver Letwin and what is he up to now?

It’s Monday, so the Tory former cabinet minister and veteran generator of cunning but ultimately doomed plans has come up with a scheme in alliance with Conservative MP Nick Boles. They envisage parliament handing over control to the liaison committee, the group of MPs who, er, liaise. This motley crew would then direct the government to do something. Why did no-one think of this before?

Letwin will be familiar to readers as the man who had to go into hiding over his tax plans in the 2001 general election and then emerged in his constituency while wearing a toga (fancy dress garden party apparently). He followed this up with letting a burglar into his house, by accident. He devised the 2010 Tory manifesto. Letwin later played a starring role in the middle of the night in Ed Miliband’s office as politicians met attempting to regulate the free press out of existence. He is one of the nicest, theoretically clever, and sincere people in politics, but Machiavelli he ain’t.

Letwin’s latest scheme with Boles contains an elementary snag. Organising a “coup” to put the Liaison Committee in charge of the country, a novel constitutional arrangement, should probably have involved talking to the members of the Liaison Committee first. Even leading Remainer Sarah – I don’t do party politics –  Wollaston is opposed to the idea and says she wasn’t consulted. And why would a committee featuring Wollaston and eurosceptic Bill Cash ever agree a way forward? It makes no sense.

Why did Nick Boles get involved in this Liaison Committee coup nonsense?

Another of life’s Brexit mysteries. Boles and Letwin have worked together for years, especially as Cameroons. Perhaps they got carried away with the cleverness of it all. Genuinely, I can no longer follow, that is comprehend, what Boles, a decent man, is trying to do on Brexit. As an architect of a Norway compromise (based on the UK staying in the EEA) he has since shifted ground so much it makes keeping up impossible. Boles advocated Norway for Now, then Norway for Ever, and today, it seems Norway Never. His efforts end up with this Letwin Liaison Committee fandango, which reduce to nil the chances of moderate Brexiteers trusting him and other Norway MPs on anything, because he is now working with people who want to stop Brexit, not deliver it, if the May deal is lost.

What happens when May loses the vote?

Nothing has changed… Yet for once that May line will not hold. Although the vote on the deal on Tuesday evening may end up being lost by fewer votes than is envisaged, it is still looking like a whopping defeat. The Prime Minister will make a statement, convene the cabinet first thing the next morning and then return to the Commons on Wednesday, presumably with business cleared for the day.

What are May’s options?

Even the cabinet is mystified about what exactly she will do. Understandably, when cabinet ministers leak as much as they do May’s few close advisers in the bunker are reluctant to tell her colleagues what, if anything, she plans. Some are urging her to reach out to Labour and other parties to forge a compromise. The risk, for the Tories, is that whatever she does the Tory party splits.

The options are:

a) Go straight back to the EU and try to get more. There is no indication the EU will consider anything meaningful, but we’re now in the end-zone with ten weeks until no deal (that the EU and Ireland really don’t want) so perhaps they’ll blink and shift a bit. If they did it would be funny to see the look on the faces of all those pro-EU British Brexit commentators who say the mighty EU never moves because it is so mighty and brilliant. A shift – unlikely, I admit – could be in the form of an Irish guarantee on the backstop. Joint government commission anyone? Or tripartite commission with the EU to police further guarantees or promises on a trade deal? Or the EU might offer to go further on the Political Declaration about the future relationship, to facilitate something Labour rebels and others could vote for in a second Commons vote. A clear promise by Britain never to do anything naughty ever again might see the EU say cancel Article 50 and forget the whole thing.

b) May could offer to sign the UK up to a permanent customs union with the EU. It’s a terrible idea that breaks her red lines and probably splits the Tory party in two, while putting the UK in a foreign body’s customs territory, a nonsense. Customs unions are usually a precursor to political integration. That’s the point of them.

c) May pivots to Norway, that is she becomes an advocate of the EEA, of which the UK is still a member. That breaks her red lines on ending freedom of movement though.

d) She pivots to Norway and customs union, leaving the UK in a ludicrous position. Out of the EU but tied to it in every respect and taking orders for ever.

e) May goes for a referendum, putting her deal to the country. The problem would then be getting agreement from parliament on what the other options on the ballot paper would be. Remain, of course. But what about the no deal option? You quickly end up with a multiple choice ballot. Good luck getting any of this through parliament, to say nothing of getting it past the country.

f) She accepts the logic of her argument so far and says it is according to the law no deal. She can say anti-no deal ministers such as Greg Clark must stop wetting themselves or resign, and gets on with it, ramping up preparations and making various no deal offers to the EU in the hope of mitigating the disruption.

g) May pre-empts Corbyn and says let’s have a quick election. It is highly risky, although senior Tories point out that May would at least have a clear position – her deal – and Corbyn’s position on Brexit in a campaign would be… what? Magical thinking about his negotiating powers, or backing for Brexit, or scrapping Brexit, or holding a referendum rerun with an argument about the question.

h) Everyone dresses up as characters from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera and runs around at high speed screaming.

Will Jeremy Corbyn intercept this week with a vote of no confidence?

Probably, yes. He’ll look very daft if he doesn’t try. The pressure on Corbyn to go for it becomes immense on Tuesday evening in the event of a heavy defeat for May. Elementary, basic politics kicks in. The government has ceased to function. The PM will have lost on one of the most critical pieces of policy since the Second World War. If the opposition can’t move against the government in such circumstances, when can it?

Can Corbyn win a vote of no confidence?

Yep, don’t be so sanguine about it. In normal circumstances of course he could not. All Tories and the DUP would vote for the government. These are not normal times, however. The DUP could do anything, frankly, depending on how it thinks it is being treated that hour by May. It only takes six Tory maniacs on the Remain side – driven wild with self-love and the conviction that this is their moment of density, sorry, destiny. I count at least six. Great Scott, they’ve lost the plot. Most are going to be removed by their local associations anyway, so why not go out in style and get peerages from a future non-Tory government?

What happens if the government loses a confidence vote?

The legislation stipulates that in the event of a defeat, the government has 14 days to try again, the assumption being that a new administration would be formed under a new leader. The most likely emergency leader on the Tory side is, I suspect, Michael Gove or Sajid Javid. Gove as a Brexiteer has the edge. Remember there is no time for a leadership contest in the country. A new emergency PM would need moderate Labour votes to deliver a compromise, some variation of EEA, Norway-ish or customs union, or partial customs union. If anti-no dealers such as Yvette Cooper were bold enough they would set themselves up – 19th century style – as a grouping (Real Labour against the communist Corbynites, or something catchy) and lend their votes to a compromise deal. Unlikely, though, that such an arrangement could survive more than a matter of months, and it all leads to a general election soon.

What’s going on this week all sounds like a terrible mess, is it?

Yes, it is a terrible mess. Personally, I think it’s the breakdown of a rotten system decades overdue a reckoning, and out of it we will have to construct a better system with more accountability. But for now, yes, it is a terrible mess.