Parliament dwellers normally maintain a detached calmness – Brexit has changed all of that

We’ve been stuck on Brexit for 735 days now. Our patience store ran out months ago. We have but a few scraps of duty and obligation left. Some of us are starting to lose hope, others have already lost their sanity. We must accept the end is near.

I jest. But there is a real sense that it is not only the process in Westminster that has reached its absolute limit, but also the politicians, journalists and other staff. Those on the extremes of Remain and Leave went haywire ages ago, donning crazy hats and giving up work to stand outside parliament’s wrought-iron gates screaming through megaphones.

Normally those inside maintain a detached calmness. But the endless late nights, endless votes, endless defeats for everyone, endless arguments, endless intransigence and the endless problems have blurred the difference.

A couple of nights ago I was talking to a senior aide to a cabinet minister, who said they no longer felt they knew how to talk about anything other than Brexit anymore. “On the rare occasion I’m not at work, I want to talk about other stuff. But then before I know it, I’m talking about fucking Brexit again,” they lamented.

When it emerged that six in 10 people think Brexit uncertainty has been bad for their mental health, one Tory MP said to me: “I think all six of them are in my party.”

After Ms May’s deal was defeated a second time, arch-Eurosceptic Steve Baker MP almost burst into tears while speaking in the chamber. In a BBC documentary this week charting the story of Brexit so far, he did burst into tears. One producer later revealed: “He cried a lot. We could have 60 minutes of that alone.”

At a briefing a day later we asked Theresa May’s spokesperson how the prime minister looked after the marathon seven-and-a-half hour cabinet meeting, he paused before saying dutifully: “She looked determined to get the right deal for Britain. I on the other hand...”

At the heart of the problem is that Brexit is a sort of addiction: it’s killing people and their political careers but they can’t stop it. They can’t help themselves because there is too much at stake. Not just the economy, but people’s way of life.

That is why regardless of how many times parliament votes for nothing through the so-called indicative votes, there will be another round of votes where all the Brexit micro-factions will try to get their vision nailed on again.

It is why no matter how many times MPs also say no to Ms May’s deal, it will come back again, like an indestructible cyborg from the film The Terminator. It’s been crushed by a machine press, run over by a truck, shot and blown apart, but just when you think it’s dead, its mangled wires spark, its broken engine whirs and that dreaded red glint of life illuminates its remaining eye, as it begins to crawl up the Commons floor again.

There were heavy groans when Ms May announced in Downing Street on Monday that in just 72 hours, she planned to invite Jeremy Corbyn in for talks, negotiate a deal, put it to a vote in the house, or choose a series of Brexit outcomes and put them all to votes in the house, go back to Brussels, renegotiate with the European Commission, hold a new meaningful vote in the house and still try and leave the EU by 23 May.

Either way, I suspect this time next week we may be a little closer to knowing what on earth Brexit really means, beyond simply Brexit that is.

Yours,

Joe Watts

Political Editor