It is not normal that oblivion remains on the government’s policy agenda

What does it say about us that our prime minister is more embarrassed by dropping a deadline than devastating thousands of lives? What does it say about our politics that she can save face by deferring economic obliteration but can’t by ruling it out altogether? Last night, the hard work of parliament’s Remainers finally saw Yvette Cooper’s amendment prevail: we will not leave without a deal on 29th March until parliament explicitly approves it, and MPs can force a request to extend the deadline. But Theresa May has exposed the ugly truth: Brexit is directly inverting all past conceptions of reality, decency and sense.

May did not willingly capitulate. She is prepared to send us into the abyss, and MPs are having to drag her away from it. She only conceded next month’s votes to stop no-deal and extend Article 50 because a slew of ministers threatened to resign if she did not. If we avoid calamity, it will be because a group of politicians had the strength to prise it from our leader’s clenched hands. It is not normal that MPs are having to fight so hard to stave off oblivion. It is not normal that oblivion remains on the government’s policy agenda.

And here is the key: we have not extinguished no-deal but delayed it. When May announced her humiliating climbdown on Tuesday, she laced it with her familiar cynicism. An extension would have to end by 30th June, because the new European Parliament term begins the next day. To clarify: the key block now is that we can’t extend by more than three months, because that would involve standing MEPs in the European elections, and that would be embarrassing. This is the issue paving our way to a deferred cliff-edge. And of course three months would not be long enough either to hold a new referendum or renegotiate and ratify an improved deal. May is still trying to run down the clock to the final blackmail of her deal or no deal; she has merely re-set the timer.

The culpability extends beyond the prime minister. Parliament is now panicking and has decided to move—but still hasn’t decided where. In last night’s latest iteration of disjointed cluelessness, 324 MPs defeated an SNP amendment that would have ruled out leaving with no deal “under any circumstances, and regardless of any exit date.” They included seven Labour MPs, explicitly choosing a no-deal which would gravely harm their constituents over a no-Brexit which would upset some of them. This, too, is not normal. This is, in fact, a collective breakdown.

What’s happening in parliament is really a symptom of a wider national problem. It transcends politics, the media and daily conversation. We still cannot fathom Brexit, let alone resolve it, because we cannot comprehend the extent to which it has transformed our entire political ecosystem. In ordinary times, having to stand candidates in elections you weren’t planning would be the biggest issue of the day. Having to extend a date decreed by the PM would constitute a key loss of her authority. But these are not ordinary times. Saving face or saving a career is not more important than saving the economy.

This phenomenon was best illustrated by May’s arguments at Prime Minister’s Questions this week. Under attack from Jeremy Corbyn about the Bank of England’s forecasts, May answered him with lines that would have been recognisable to any political audience from the last 40 years. Employment and growth were up, she said. Borrowing was down. And yet the prime minister who currently boasts about the economy is simultaneously advertising modern Britain’s greatest economic disaster as a future policy option. You cannot promote strong growth while also threatening a wholly voluntary recession. In a particularly Orwellian nadir, she suggested that Labour would inadvertently trigger a run on the pound. A day earlier she refused to confirm she wouldn’t personally vote for an outcome that would crash it. It is as if we are inhabiting two worlds in parallel, one reassuringly traditional and one entirely unhinged.

Labour, too, is struggling with the new normal. Its now formal position of supporting a referendum is welcome, and we must applaud the party for it. But after last night’s vote Corbyn declared his intention to “continue to push for the other available options”—even though parliament continues to reject them. Too many Labour MPs still refuse the prospect of a referendum, despite the unpalatability of every other option. They still cannot accept the reality before them: Britain is now riven by existential discord. The country’s divisions are profound and likely irreversible. Every option will make things worse, and so we have to seek the option that will damage us the least. We may reach a referendum in the end—but perhaps only if the realistic alternative appears to be no deal at all.

The fundamental problem here is one of mindset. We are still treating everything as knowable and routine. But the old ways of thinking no longer work. Who cares if we have to stand MEPs when we said we wouldn’t? Who cares if we have to extend Brexit beyond an arbitrary date we decided was important? These challenges are unimportant. It is like setting fire to your house and then arguing over the seating plan for your dinner party. We have to stop pretending everything is as it was. There remains an overriding emphasis on personality and personal stature, what is and isn’t embarrassing for the PM, what can and can’t get through the right-wing tabloids. But Brexit represents a unique rupture, and we must adapt our political rituals and approaches to accommodate it. We no longer live in an innocent age where familiar problems result in familiar consequences. These times are as dangerous as we have ever known, and we need to start acting like it.