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Dr Philip Lee has voted for cuts in benefits, more climate change, and the culling of badgers. Chuka Umunna has voted for more benefits, reducing climate change, and in badgers' best interests.

These two MPs are in the same political party.

They have now been joined by Luciana Berger, who voted twice for a Brexit referendum and twice against.

Umunna voted for Article 50 and then against leaving the EU, while Lee has consistently voted against the EU in all its forms.

The party they have all joined is campaigning to Remain.

Confused? Try writing an election manifesto for the Tories, 39% of whose voters backed Remain, or Labour, whose official policy is to get a new Brexit deal and then tell people to vote agin it.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

The above politicians are criticised by opponents because they can't pick a team. Berger and Umunna have both been members of 3 parties in the space of 6 months.

But in this they are ahead of the curve. For all of Westminster, the party is over.

The government is led by a man controlled by his advisers, and the official Opposition is led by a man controlled by his cabinet. Neither leads. Come the general election, both will field candidates who will find it easier to support the manifestos of the other side.

Voters who have always backed Labour will back Brexiters who want to privatise the NHS, while dyed-in-the-wool Tories will vote for blue rosettes only if they also have gold stars on them.

(Image: STRINGER/EPA-EFE/REX)

The 2016 referendum did not just split the country in two. It also broke our system of party politics, when you knew everything about someone's world view once you knew what team they went in to bat for.

There is no telling, now. Some voters will do a lot more research before picking a candidate to back, but many won't. They'll vote on a single issue, and later feel betrayed if one of the other issues makes itself known.

The point of the party system was not just to control and discipline, but to organise - to have machinery that shares resources, wins elections, and formulates policy based on the views of its membership.

When party becomes irrelevant, you get a Parliament filled with independents, and a decision-making process more splintered than Pinocchio jumping on landmines. You won't get a government - you'll have a bunfight.

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Politicians whose party has been the centre of their lives for decades are bowing out regretfully, and will be replaced by those whose zealotry is so recent it is undulled by reality. Extremists who couldn't run a tap hold sway in both main parties, while the vast majority of voters sit between them, unimpressed with both.

For many, the emergence of the Lib Dems as a centre ground that tolerates a massive variety of views is a positive sign. Others wonder how the Yellows will ever come up with a policy they can all support on taxation or the nuclear deterrent, never mind poor old Tommy Brock.

Could we sustain a Parliament in which a different coalition must be formed for every vote? For the Greens to unite with Labour on climate change, for the Blues and Yellows to combine on Budgets, or the SNP to be key to all legislation affecting England and Wales?

We may soon find out. And then we'll need another general election, in the hope of shaking out a government that can actually get anything done.

(Image: PA)

We have had 3 years of stagnation while our government tries to give 17.4m people the jam-smeared unicorn they demanded. Polls show people fear a government by Jeremy Corbyn, who could be got rid of, more than they do a No Deal Brexit, which cannot. Our country, and its people, is stuck like a frog in a pump, kicking wildly and getting nowhere.

Parliament must reset, and so must we. Politicians hope that once past Brexit, their parties - and their personal sense of moral safety - can reform.

But if the party is over for Labour and the Tories, it has just begun for the Brexit Party, which has foregone the democratic kerfuffle and cut straight to rallies and the issuing of instructions about what to think, which has more in common with Joe Stalin than the Faragistes would care to admit.

It will disappear only if Brexit is delivered. And Brexit, as voted for, cannot be done. With a support that is both widespread and less than a fifth of the voting public, Nigel is never going to be given the task which has killed two Prime Ministers and is now publicly torturing the third. He has power purely because he has never had to wield it.

(Image: Getty Images)

As long as the Brexit Party exists, the centre ground will have a reason to do the same. The Lib Dems could become a party which welcomes both Left and Right, united in the common cause of promoting sanity.

But to do it, the voters must recover theirs first. We have not given anyone a clear political mandate since 2005, so it is no surprise those we choose are in two minds about everything. Berger and Umunna have not switched sides as often as we have.

While our constitution is flexing to survive the turmoil, our parties are not. And politics in which moderates face off against the mad is not sustainable - the lure of smashing what is already broken is hard to resist.

If Brexit counts for anything, it must persuade us all of the need for radical change - be it lowering the voting age, ripping up the tax system, or massively increasing the number and cost of things we are prepared to pay for.

(Image: Samantha Zucchi / BACKGRID)

How many of us would vote for a National Social Care Service, and also pay for one? How many want a carbon footprint of zero, and are prepared to fund government solar panels on every roof in the land? How many will let our children have a say on our pensions?

Parliament is not against the people. It IS the people, and has been consistent in its chaos as a result. Fixing that requires a movement - political, intellectual, and universal - towards a country inspired to progress.

The alternative to enlightenment is darkness. A Parliament of ignorance, enclosure, rejection. A country that hates its representatives, because they represent us too well.

When you vote, remember this: you vote, this time, on a single issue. You can vote for a new world next time.

When the party is over, you need to clean up and deal with the hangover before you can party again.