Britain truly is staring into the abyss. For all our sakes, MPs must stop playing games with our future

ONCE again the c o untry faces a moment of decision, but most of our elected, salaried politicians are not prepared to take that decision. Rather than accept a real, existing agreement under which we can leave the European Union at the end of March, our representatives continue to dream of other deals which do not exist, have never existed and probably never will exist.

All the indications are that, despite weeks of lobbying and persuasion, despite the calming effect of the Christmas break, and despite the lack of any serious alternative, the Prime Mini st er’s negotiated deal f or leaving the EU will be defeated in the Commons on Tuesday.

The only matter in question, insiders say, is the size of that defeat. There is a real danger, if it is severe enough, that it will lead to a vote of no confidence and the resignation of Theresa May.

Sensible MPs should do all they can to avoid this outcome. The Mail on Sunday very much hopes that the defeat will not be devastating, as that could force Mrs May from office and leave the country more or less leaderless in the midst of one of the biggest crises it has ever faced. Any MP still wavering should bear that in mind before going into the division lobbies.

If Mrs May is forced out, the Tory Party will inevitably tear itself to shreds, leaving the way clear for Labour to come to power. This is especially ridiculous because it will not even solve the problem. Labour itself is as divided as the Tories.

Jeremy Corbyn silently supports Brexit o n Marxist grounds, but hopes his young ultra-Left-wing backers, mostly fervent EU supporters, will not notice. Meanwhile, his Shadow Brexit Secretary, Keir Starmer, and the Blairite wing of the party are devoted to keeping us in at any cost and are sidling towards support for a second referendum.

So not only could Tory dissension hand the keys of government to Jeremy Corbyn. It could then leave the country with a continuing stalemate over Brexit.

But on the assumption that Mrs May survives, it is important that a majority in Parliament quickly grasps a vital point. There are two things that cannot now be allowed to happen. First, Brexit cannot be frustrated, as Blairite plotters would like.

Defiance of the popular mandate would lead only to chaos, do grave harm to democracy and the constitution, and cause the humiliation of this country in the eyes of the world.

Second, we cannot leave without a deal. All wise heads know that this is fraught with danger, especially to the economy and the general wellbeing of the country. The trading and other relations between nations in our modern globalised world are highly complex and easily upset. You might as well try to build a house without an architect’s plan.

The Prime Minister’s gruelling and unending battle to honour the referendum result has been fought in the harsh light of endless public criticism, often shaken by resignations and parliamentary defeats. She is surrounded by people who constantly tell her how wrong she is and how inadequate her deal is, but who never come up with answers of their own. Meanwhile, those who still seek t o reverse t he referendum result work in secret to undermine and checkmate it, and relentlessly lobby for a second referendum, which only they cannot see would be disastrous, even if it gave a clear result.

And yet, honourably and doggedly, ceaselessly abused, she persists – because she is determined to do what is right. Personally, she was opposed to Brexit. But as Her Majesty’s chief minister and the leader of her party, she has set aside per- sonal concerns and devoted her efforts to the good of the country. If only more MPs and Ministers would follow t he same course. She remains at her post mainly because nobody else is prepared to pick up her burden, or is capable of it.

Her concept of duty is simple. To take Britain out of the EU, as the electorate wills, but to do so with the minimum economic and political damage to the United Kingdom. It would be good if, on Tuesday, the House of Commons looked reality in the face and backed her.

Yet perhaps because the true crisis is still a few weeks away, many MPs still feel free to indulge themselves with fantasy politics.

But there is still time for an outbreak of sanity. The overriding truth could not be clearer. Why is there almost nobody in the indisciplined, wobbly, self- aggrandising, endlessly leaking Cabinet who is prepared to stand up and say that there is no obvious alternative to the agreement negotiated by the Prime Minister?

Where, when we need them most, are the grown-ups?

There has seldom been such a mismatch between the public mood and the mood in Parliament. The almost universal feeling among voters is that the whole business must be brought to an end.

People are not just sick of the sight and sound of the topic, though they are.

They are also increasingly worried that the other important business of the country is not being dealt with.

A great mass of other issues, from the problems over Universal Credit to the worrying state of our Armed Forces, the relentless increase in violent crime, the overcrowding of the prisons, and the swelling crisis in the universities need urgent and detailed attention. Northern Ireland still has no government. The railways are a tangled mess.

BUT inside Westminster, there is no sense that the European issue needs to be wound up. On t he contrary, MPs are utterly preoccupied with this one subject at the expense of everything else.

For too many of them, it is pure politics, the sort professional politicians enjoy for its own sake, however irrelevant it is to the real world. They seem all too keen to prolong the crisis with ever more votes and ambushes, and ever more sniping at the only available deal.

Perhaps they simply have not woken up from t heir post-Christmas torpor. Perhaps they still have not fully grasped how serious matters are, and how close Brexit day now is. Perhaps Tuesday’s vote will be the point at which they will realise that this is not a play, that there really is a crisis, that we really are now racing through the rapids in turbulent white water, and that distant thunder is the lip of the political and economic Niagara towards which we are speeding.

We can only hope that they will wake up. Future historians will marvel at their slowness to do so. Let us hope they will also rejoice at the way in which, when they at last understood the danger, they found it in their hearts to be generous, forgiving and open to compromise above all for the sake of the country whose fate really does lie in their hands in the weeks to come.