Theresa May has bottled it. She’s realised her deal is so disastrous that she has taken the desperate step of delaying her own vote at the 11th hour.

For weeks, she has insisted that her Brexit deal is the best possible deal, even though it’s opposed by most people in her party and across the country.

Four days ago the prime minister confirmed the vote would go ahead, and her cabinet and spokespeople spent the weekend insisting it would go ahead as planned. The government is in such disarray that one of its ministers found out about the cancelled vote live on television, while sitting on the BBC’s Politics Live sofa.

Her efforts to win round MPs have had the reverse effect, driving up numbers in the ever-growing list of Tory MPs attacking the deal. However, May has finally managed to bring the country together. People on all sides of the Brexit debate who have been bitterly divided since June 2016 have united in opposition to her deal.

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We have known for at least two weeks that the prime minister’s worst-of-all-worlds deal was going to be rejected by parliament. So why did she stick her head in the sand, only to pull out at the last minute?

I’ve had deja vu from when she insisted for months that she would not call a general election, and then suddenly moved to dissolve parliament. We can’t trust a word she or her team say.

As she braces to head back to Brussels on Thursday, let’s not forget that just over two weeks ago, when Labour called for the deal to be renegotiated, she said her deal was “the only possible deal” and that “if people think, somehow, there’s another negotiation to be done – that’s not the case”. Why would anyone believe her again?

May could have, and should have, either gone back to Brussels to renegotiate weeks ago or called an election so the public could elect a new government who would.

The truth is, we no longer have a functioning government. While May has botched Brexit and is locked in bitter internal infighting, the needs of our country have been neglected. Our public services are at breaking point and our communities are being held back because of chronic under-investment by the Conservatives.

The government has come to a standstill. We’ve had delay after delay on bringing forward vital domestic legislation. Last week the local government finance settlement, which sets out how much cash councils will have for the year ahead, joined the long list of delayed government legislation and announcements. Other notable examples are the NHS long-term plan, the immigration white paper and the social care green paper, which has now been delayed by over a year.

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Governments are required to multitask, but this government can’t even single-task. With record levels of poverty, insecurity and homelessness this Christmas, we cannot afford to go on like this.

If the prime minister is incapable of even bringing a deal to parliament, then she needs to step aside and make way for a government that can. Labour stands ready to intervene to unlock the negotiations, deliver on the result of the referendum and protect people’s jobs and living standards. Labour’s alternative Brexit plan for a permanent customs union with the right for Britain to have a say in future trade deals, a strong single market relationship, and full protection of workers’ rights and environmental protections and consumer standards, would put jobs first and prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland.

After this humiliating climbdown, it could not be clearer that May is in office but not in power, and her credibility lies in tatters.

• Ian Lavery MP is chair of the Labour party