May bid to blame Blair says it all

IT is hard to find a word for the current state of Brexit. Omnishambles is already taken. How do you sum up two years of wasted effort culminating in the humiliating week we’ve just seen?

Theresa May insisted she had a deal. The only deal on the table. The only deal she would consider putting before Parliament.

Then, when the time came, she didn’t. She decided to go back to Brussles and renegotiate, confident of success.

But the EU said she’d already had their best offer. So she came back empty-handed.

The whole process has been a disaster. And now Mrs May blames, erm, Tony Blair for it. That’s right. Tony Blair.

There are many things Mr Blair is responsible for. But the Brexit mess is not his fault.

The one bright spot in Mrs May’s week was that she won a vote of confidence. Only a third of her party doesn’t like her.

What that means for us is – like the rest of the process – unclear.

More haggling, more delays, as parties jostle for position over Brexit. We now have the added complication of a lame duck Prime Minister whose colleagues are circling her like vultures.

Fans of Mrs May, there still are some, keep talking about how they admire her sense of duty.

That she is behaving like a true servant of the country in trying to get this deal through.

But if Mrs May genuinely wants to the do the best for the UK she needs to think again.

This deal will not pass Parliament. Deferring the vote out of fear of being beaten was the wrong thing to do.

Parliament needs to have its say as soon as possible.

If her deal is rejected, so be it. At least then we will be allowed something we haven’t seen on Brexit for a long, long time.

Progress.