This parliament is a shambles on Brexit – the EEA option gives us a way out

There is a lot of talk these days about incompetence in politics. The feeling has grown, especially since the referendum, that many, perhaps most, MPs simply aren’t up to the job. I could list off – if only I could remember who they are or what they do – scores of ministers, Opposition spokesmen and backbenchers of every hue who aren’t household names even in their own households.

How did this happen? Sheer bad luck is the answer. Cometh the hour, cometh the inadequates.

Those who know the Commons well like to assure us that the next generation of Tory members, those elected in 2010 and 2015, contains many who will take Britain by the scruff of the neck post-Brexit. I, for one, will believe that when I see it. Whether any similar claim can be made for Labour is doubtful. Fifty or more of the present lot, most of them decent enough but neither brave nor brilliant, could find themselves deselected over the next 12 months, their successors, under the banner of Momentum, vetted by the ghastly duo of Seumas Milne and Owen Jones.

The Lib-Dems, meanwhile, who only three-and-a-bit years ago were in government, with their leader as deputy prime minister, are reduced to near-absolute irrelevance, rather like the SNP, who these days seem to have given up on independence in favour of appearing as a sarcastic Greek chorus in the Brexit tragi-comedy.

The supreme irony is that the only thing that keeps the Tories in office is the fact that they have the support of the DUP, a group of fundamentalists so narrowly-focused and uncompromising that for the past 20 months they have repeatedly denied the people of Northern Ireland the dubious pleasure of a power-sharing executive.

In summary, and without fear of contradiction, Britain’s departure from the European Union is being overseen by the worst assemblage of MPs since the Appeasement Parliament of 1935.

As an unrepentant Remainer, I favour a second referendum to rescue the nation from the lamentable consequences of the first. All that is by the way. If we are going to leave the EU, let us, for God’s sake, at least do so with intelligence and dignity.

We’ve had the Blessed Parliament, the Rump Parliament, the Reform Parliament, even the Useless Parliament (June-August, 1625, since you ask). But the present Commons will surely be labelled the Shambles Parliament, or, just possibly, the Inept Parliament, in which the only real contest is for Most Incompetent – or flaccid – Member.

Theresa May is PM by accident. She rose without trace as Home Secretary, wrongly perceived as a safe pair of hands at a time when the country, post-Cameron, desperately needed strong and sensible guidance. To say that she is a disappointment is to say the least. Her party, few of whom regard her as their true captain – is a ship of fools, rudderless and heading for the rocks. At any other time, Labour would be sailing by, sure of safe passage into Downing Street. But the People’s Party, led, if that is the word, by a passive-aggressive buffoon, is falling apart, split from stem to stern, unable to formulate a reasoned response, one way or the other, to the gravest crisis to have erupted on the political scene since 1940.

When the Nazis conquered France and the invasion of England looked to be imminent, the result was a national government led by Churchill and that other great gentleman patriot, Clement Attlee. Together, the two titans rallied the nation, creating the conditions necessary, first for survival, then for victory. I don’t expect Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to do the same and come together in coalition. For a start, the idea of a government of all the talents is predicated on the belief that there should be enough talent to go round, which, frankly, is doubtful.

But there is a way ahead that gives everybody something to crow about. What is to stop moderates on both sides of the aisle from averting disaster by voting to keep Britain within the European Economic Area – the so-called Norway option? EEA membership would liberate us from the EU’s political structures as well as from our adherence to the common agricultural and fisheries policies. At the same time, it would retain our access to the Single Market, resolve the issue of the Irish border and accord us the freedom to negotiate our own trade deals with third countries.

The Norway option is not what Remainers want. It is certainly not what I want. But nor is it what Jacob Rees-Mogg or Boris Johnson want. More importantly, it may just be the option that saves our bacon. Is there any chance, any chance at all, that there are enough MPs out there, on both sides of the aisle, the Celtic fringe included, who are ready and willing to come down on the side of reason and do what is right for Britain? The 2017 House of Commons may be the Shambles Parliament, but it is also the Last Chance Saloon.