Bring on the mayhem, roll on the waves of chaos, let Brexit and its conflicted Brexiters writhe over the impossible contradictions of their revolutionary cause. The worse it gets, the better for the country as the less likely we are to leave. The prime minister’s evening dash to Strasbourg may still deliver deadlock – and a good thing too. If we end the week with no deal, a bar on no-deal exit and a delay with length and purpose unknown, the country inches closer to no Brexit. If her rotten deal does scrape through, this will not be the end: it will fester on, fought over for a generation, unless the people have agreed it with a vote.

Hardliners fight tooth and claw against delaying withdrawal as they see Brexit slip away. Three long years since the referendum campaign makes that close result look more obsolete with each passing week: so much has happened, we know so much more. The more furiously Brexiters assert that one vote is the only valid “will of the people”, the more bogus their claim looks.

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Steve Baker, the European Research Group’s deputy chair, says if the people were asked again, “democracy would be effectively dead”. Liam Fox warned on Sunday: “Consider the political instability that might follow.” Others threaten riots and mob rule: would it be the first ever riot against a chance to vote? No Brexit deal has been put to the people. The “death of democracy” is when you dare not let people vote, because they now know too much about Brexit’s risks – to the economy, security, culture and UK influence for generations ahead. When Brexiters claim to own the “will of the people”, ask if they’re too frit to ask them now?

On the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Jeremy Hunt – the implausible foreign secretary who recently compared the EU to the Soviet Union – gave the game away: “If you want to stop Brexit you only need to do three things: kill this deal, get an extension and then have a second referendum.” So there we have it. They know they can’t win a referendum to confirm any Brexit deal. The tide has turned and, as Hunt added, Brexit is “in very perilous waters”, their ship holed below the waterline by a hail of facts they could dodge in the referendum.

God knows, any yes/no referendum is high risk, but YouGov founder Peter Kellner is as sure as you can be that a vote to confirm a specific Brexit deal versus remain would see us stay in the European Union. Last time the leavers were free to float airy dreams of what Brexit might be – unicorns, rainbows and leprechauns in that one word, “leave”. But this time people would vote on a specific plan, with clauses and paragraphs, no leeway for wild wishful thinking, finally confronting Brexit’s difficult trade-offs.

Play Video 1:32 Irish deputy PM: British backstop proposals are ‘wishful thinking’ – video

This time people know you can’t have the benefits of being in the club from outside: those promises have died. If you control your own borders, they can’t be frictionless unless you join the customs union. Theresa May promised the impossible – no hard border with Ireland, which by a 1998 international treaty we are bound to keep open, and yet no customs union either. The backstop isn’t a glitch: we wait, as I write, to see if May gets some last-minute codicil to fudge the fact. Listen to Brexiter abuse of the Irish: but at every stage of future trade dealings the EU27 will stand by the legal rights of members, against us as outsiders. Medicines, aviation, road haulage, tariffs, food – people have had time to see how intimately our lives are interwoven and to what mutual benefit.

That’s why polls have shown, for a year now, an 8-10% lead for remain. The weekend poll from BMG showed that the 2 million young voters who have joined the register since 2016 are overwhelmingly for remain. YouGov’s constituency poll finds only two out of 630 where a majority want their MP to back May’s deal.

Yet you can find plenty of bad polls too, such as ComRes, commissioned by leave campaign Brexit Express. It finds 44% agreeing with the statement: “If the EU refuses to make any more concessions, the UK should leave without a deal.” Kellner calls it “loaded, a disgraceful piece of polling, I’m amazed they only got 44%, considering the question”. Brexit Express didn’t choose to promote less welcome results – such as an 8% lead for remain over leave.

Of course a referendum might be lost – but how much better to leave the EU with people voting for a deal they have seen and agreed to. As MP Yvette Cooper warned, this Brexit deal or any other that emerges will never endure without an extended time for public debate, and finally a general election or referendum – preferably both – that settles it beyond dispute.

MPs Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson are holding back their elegant amendment until next week – it would pass May’s deal, but on condition it is put to the people for a confirmatory vote. They – like those promoting a soft Norwegian deal – are trying to be the last option left standing. But whatever the deal, soft or hard, Kyle makes a strong case for putting it to the vote: without it, politics will be poisoned permanently, half the country for ever unreconciled.

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The rightwing Maoists who brought us to this pass need to be reminded of how they keep turning more extreme. “We only ever joined a common market,” they used to say. Things only went wrong after the Maastricht treaty, with EU ideas of political and “ever closer” union. Nothing wrong, they used to pretend, with the customs union or single market, as constructed by Margaret Thatcher. The likes of Nigel Farage and Daniel Hannan praised Norway and Switzerland models, staying close but not quite inside the EU. Now they all denounce any such soft deal as Brino, Brexit in name only. Be warned, these are insatiables for whom no deal will ever be hard enough, as they lie in wait for the trade deal after withdrawal, for their real fight. Those wanting Brexit to be over will find it a never-ending process of deal-making, a never-ending obsession in parliament. The only way to end it all is to remain.

Vultures circle above the prime minister, with remainers in the odd position of praying she survives: a Tory leadership contest fighting for votes of the mostly Brextremist Tory party members will cause yet worse damage to the Brexit impasse. Shudder at the “Ready for Raab” leaflets set to go, along with a gallery of postulants, each one pledging harder and tougher dealings with the EU. (Surely it’s time to stop prime ministers being dumped on us with no election?)

Each Tory contender will be tested in Wednesday’s tomorrow’s no-deal vote. Anyone opting for no deal is truly unfit for office. How will May vote? Whichever way, she needs to stay. The prime minister is well-versed in eating her own promises and red lines: if parliament votes to delay article 50, who else could swallow her words and obey the will of the Commons?

• Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist