Theresa May is sitting on her sofa telling you it’s all going to be fine – it’s time to start panicking

Don’t panic. Definitely don’t panic. Why would you want to panic? It’s only Theresa May, sitting very casually on her sofa, chillaxing in her oak-panelled living room in front of her oil paintings, shooting the breeze with you, me and Joe Public about the latest Brexit lols.

Awww, look at the wobbly camera, the low production values, the little chuckle as the actual prime minister recalls the sheer number of times the pesky House of Commons has dang well voted down her Brexit deal. This was top viral content, a Zoella for the home counties Rotary Club generation.

You, me, we all know that neither me nor anyone else has got a clue what’s going to happen even within the next 10 minutes, but look at my sofa! I’m just like you!

Who knows, frankly, what she was thinking. Does she think anything anymore? In the realm of “if you have to say it” politics, it stands right up there with that Zimbabwean army general turning up on state TV to say that there absolutely, definitely hadn’t been a military coup.

Perhaps she was simply preparing for life beyond Downing Street. If Shakespeare, the Bible and The Beautiful South are to be believed, life has a tendency to go back to the start. So why shouldn’t a former prime minister just sit in her house, uploading webcam videos of herself, giving her opinions on the latest issues of the day. A Brexit unboxing video, with no Brexit, and no box.

It is quite the mark of exactly where Theresa May now is that not one but two bits of Theresa May video content went viral at the weekend, one her mad fireside chat, the other the US comedy show Saturday Night Live tearing into her, and it should be the latter from which she should emerge with more dignity.

Saturday Night Live was actually quite nice about her. As she jumps inadvertently into 4ft puddles, accidentally vaporises a beautiful butterfly with just a furtive glance, and descends into erotic dreams about Winston Churchill, she is, the show makes clear, the only person actually trying to sort out Brexit.

Perhaps, with a little more distance from the narrative, as they say, Theresa May is a sympathetic character. The reluctant pilot of a kamikaze plane, whose passengers will only be placated by their own death, but who she knows will still blame her and her party in the afterlife, and seek retribution at the ballot box.

Perhaps with a little more distance, things look more normal. You have to have your nose pressed pretty close to the glass to appreciate the full wonder of things like the prime minister’s actual spokesperson, asked a question on the ongoing negotiations with Labour, replying with the words, “I point you in the direction of what Rebecca Long-Bailey said at the weekend.” Rebecca Long-Bailey, whose elevation to high rank within the Labour Party owes everything to not even the first but the second wave of mass shadow cabinet resignations, now speaks for the prime minister.

All day on Monday, we were led to believe a breakthrough with Labour was imminent. That had been the point of the fireside chat. A real, meaningful concrete offer. A customs union, essentially. Something that the House of Commons might actually vote for. Late in the afternoon, we were instead told to expect no more than an outline for the “next stage of talks” between the parties. The talks, just to repeat, only have a matter of days to amount to something.

Still, things come round again. She now heads off to Paris and Berlin before the emergency Brussels summit on Wednesday. She made this identical trip almost exactly 1,000 days ago, when she first became prime minister. All she was told then, by Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, was that there would be no negotiating at all until she had triggered Article 50.

She did as she was told and everything fell apart. Now, it may very well be that Hollande’s successor, Emmanuel Macron, will sling her and us out of the EU on Wednesday against our wishes.

If he does so, or indeed even if he doesn’t, her final act could be imminent. No-deal Brexit or a long extension are the only options. Both summon forth the implacable passengers to the cockpit.

And then it’s a long appointment with the sofa. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.