A government of national unity is the only way to avoid yet another disastrous hung parliament

When, back in 1995, I placed a £10 bet on the then chancellor of the exchequer, Ken Clarke, to be prime minister, I didn’t really think my wager might be in play a quarter of a century later. It may still not pay out, and I have lost the betting slip, but his name has cropped up as one of a number of possible candidates to lead the GNU – Government of National Unity. He recently said, with a detachment that only 50 years in parliament can bestow, “I wouldn’t rule out” the prospect, if it was the only way to stop no-deal Brexit.

Well, that’s good of him. Other supposedly consensual names in the frame include Dame Margaret Beckett, Dominic Grieve and Harriet Harman (though she’d not be able to be speaker of the House and of the Commons as well, even though women are better than men at multitasking).

All have their virtues, but constitutionally and practically, surely the SNP and Labour are right to suggest that Jeremy Corbyn should take on the role, on a strictly time-limited, task-specific basis – sending the article 50 extension to Brussels. There should be no worry about Corbyn trying to stage some sort of Bolshevik revolution or a sit-in in No 10 because he can easily be turfed out by the other parties. And you might be able to trust Corbyn to do what he promises to do more than Boris Johnson.

So, just for the record, although I’d abhor the notion of a Labour government led by Corbyn, I have no real objection to him being the next prime minister, and his progressively more enthusiastic (or less hostile) approach towards a second referendum does command him.

The problem is that the Liberal Democrats under Jo Swinson and the Tory rebels (most of them) have tried to rule Corbyn out. Philip Hammond says he’d rather boil his head than see Corbyn go to the Palace, so there we are.

Maybe Corbyn would, statesmanlike, agree to serve as deputy under someone else for the duration of the GNU. That would be “game on” to stop no-deal Brexit without parliamentary or popular approval. It would be a matter of days before the necessary arrangements were made. The Queen has taken advice, we’re told, on how to dismiss a prime minister under the terms of the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011. She has a sound legal and constitutional basis for doing so after a PM loses a vote of confidence in the appropriate wording.

Job done, then. But then the questions arise again. Who will be in the GNU? Will John McDonnell be chancellor? Will Jo Swinson serve as home secretary? Could Chuka Umunna pop up as foreign secretary? Diane Abbott running the Department for Business? Ian Blackford looking after the farmers at Defra? Caroline Lucas at a re-constituted Climate Change department, naturally? Nicholas Soames at Defence? Alistair Burt for Dexue? Or Not-Dexeu? Or a government entirely comprised of the over-70s? It would certainly make for an interesting time.

But what does a GNU do? What would its, erm, policies be? Would it want a general election straight away, or a referendum? Would it prefer, say, another go at Theresa May’s deal? Or another deal? Would it legislate for a referendum? What would it tell the European Commission when they ask, politely, what it is that the United Kingdom proposes to do with another six or 12 months?

Or perhaps the GNU really will have the life of a mayfly, and, having passed through the looking glass of 31 October, simply hand the keys to the governance of Britain back to Johnson and his gang. Who, predictably, will then attempt to undo everything the GNU did.

I am all in favour of stopping no-deal Brexit without parliamentary or popular support. I genuinely want a second referendum with the option of Remain and Leave on the ballot paper – in effect no Brexit or no-deal Brexit. That is where opinion has polarised, and where the internal contradictions of Brexit lead us – because “soft Brexit” was always essentially a bit of a myth.

The reason why this is a superior way of proceeding, as compared to a general election, is that it might take two or three general elections to get a majority for any single party, or plausible coalition, and maybe not even then. We could, quite easily, end up with a hung parliament after hung parliament because of the vagaries of the first-past-the-post system; because of the intervention of the Brexit party; because a far stronger Green and Lib Dem vote will take support form left and right; because Scotland will be utterly lost to both main parties; because comparatively small shifts in support would be magnified in Commons seats. The election would also be fought on many issues other than Brexit. It is not a great way forward.

The only way to close Brexit down – to get Brexit done in the sense of concluding the trauma – is to ask the people to do so. A general election cannot produce an answer to the Remain/Leave question. A referendum was the genesis of the mess we are now in, and, sooner or later, we will have to return to it. Whether it is Johnson and Cummings, or Corbyn and Starmer, or Ken Clarke and Margaret Beckett, we will have to have a Final Say vote, and preferably when the weather is at least warm enough to campaign. My money’s on next April.