Can the stuttering, spluttering British establishment pull itself together in time to save Brexit?

“Life can only be understood backwards,” wrote Soren Kierkegaard, “but it must be lived forwards.” The great Dane was right. His words apply to politics as much as to the rest of life. How

different might have been our attitude to the European Union three years ago if we could only have known that Brexit would give our political class a collective nervous breakdown. They

remind us of the most famous image of another gloomy Scandinavian, Edvard Munich’s The Scream. With only a week left before time runs out, however, Britain cannot afford to allow our elected

representatives that luxury. We need action this day.

Yet Westminster seems to have run out of ideas. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition held talks yesterday that were described as “constructive” but were followed by

recriminations on both sides. The House of Commons failed to agree on a new round of indicative votes, with the Speaker using his casting vote to break a rare tie. A parliamentary system

designed for adversarial politics has, it seems, sputtered to a halt.

The only thing MPs seem sure about is that they prefer a further extension to no deal: Yvette Cooper’s Bill to outlaw leaving the EU without an agreement has now been sent to the Lords to be

waved through with all possible despatch. Yet the latest YouGov opinion poll shows that no deal is now the most popular choice in the country: voters prefer no deal to remain by 44 to 42

per cent, and if there is an extension, by 40 to 36 per cent. On Brexit, it seems, Parliament is still as much at odds with the people as it was in 2016.

As they contemplate this spectacle, our European neighbours are not sure whether to laugh or cry. Yesterday the EU Parliament’s Belgian Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt compared the

Commons to the Premier League, where the matches always end in draws. Yet such mockery is accompanied by growing anxiety, as witnessed by Chancellor Merkel’s dash to Dublin for emergency

talks with Taoiseach Varadkar. The Germans and the Irish are perhaps the two nations whose economies are most vulnerable to any disruption of trade with the UK. It is therefore natural that

Angela Merkel, the most powerful person in Europe, is also the only one who is prepared to tell Leo Varadkar that his grandstanding on the border question now has to end. In a week’s time,

the Republic’s border with Northern Ireland may become the EU’s border with Britain. The Irish now need to get their act together, and quickly.

The initiative has, it seems, been relinquished by Westminster to Brussels again. Next Wednesday, Mrs May is due to return there to face another inquisition by 27 heads of government. Any

further extension will certainly be subject to conditions, but trust is in short supply and British promises may be greeted with a sceptical shrug, especially by the French. There may even

be a new item “on the table”: the revocation of Article 50. For the Prime Minister, that would be the political equivalent of a loaded pistol. But beggars cannot be choosers.

Recrimination is the favourite displacement activity of those who bear heavy responsibility, but this is no time to rue past mistakes. By this time next week, we may realise belatedly that

there had, in fact, been a brief window of opportunity —a long weekend when the British establishment might have pulled itself together and made up its mind about Brexit. Nothing is

inevitable until it has already happened. But if the opportunity is missed, it never recurs.

Life is certainly being lived forwards for our backward-looking leaders. In fact, the Brexit machine has been switched to fast forward. The deadline looms. Will we seize the day? Or live to

regret our loss of nerve?

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