If this was a boxing contest it would have been stopped long ago. Theresa May looks increasingly more like a punch-drunk rag doll than a fully functioning prime minister. She is battered from crisis to crisis, unable to govern even her own party, let alone the country. Only last week she first had to endure the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson – not to mention those of several other junior ministers of whom most of the country were blissfully unaware – and then had to stand helpless as President Trump publicly insulted her and undermined her position during his visit to the UK.

And it all shows no signs of letting up. This week she faces more open rebellion from the Tory ranks as both the EU customs and trade bills receive their third readings in the Commons – there's even the chance the government may humiliate itself by delaying the vote at the last minute to avoid the greater humiliation of being defeated – and both Davis and Johnson are expected to make damaging resignation speeches from the backbenches. Shades of Geoffrey Howe bringing down Margaret Thatcher in 1990.

All of which takes place against a background of the prime minister's Brexit Chequers agreement, a negotiating fudge that has managed to appease neither the hardline Brexiteers in her own party nor the Remainers and is in any case unlikely to survive close scrutiny from the EU. Where to begin with the ironies? The EU referendum, that had largely been held to resolve Conservative differences over Europe, now looks like it might divide the party for good.

© PA Photos

Project Brexit has finally come up against Project Reality. There are any number of things you can criticise Theresa May for over her handling of the negotiations – her insistence early on that leaving the EU meant leaving the customs union, the single market and the European Court Of Justice. During the referendum, plenty of those campaigning for Vote Leave insisted there was no need to leave any of those institutions and yet, once she became prime minister, May nailed her colours to a hard Brexit. If the referendum result had proved anything other than the UK voting to leave the UK, it was that the narrowness of the result indicated there was no enthusiasm for anything but the softest of Brexits.

Then there was her decision to trigger Article 50 before she had even worked out what kind of deal she wanted to try and negotiate. Taking the best part of 18 months to come up with a plan that no one likes is a basic error even a failed state might have tried to avoid. No wonder half the EU is scratching their heads while the other half is sniggering. Choosing to hold a general election a couple of months into a crucial two-year negotiating period didn't work out so well for her either.

But the fact remains that Brexit was always going to be a near-impossible task. Either Britain was going to crash out of the EU with no deal or it was going to come to some kind of compromise arrangement. Whichever the government chose was going to leave the country worse off. Which is one of the main reasons Theresa May is still in a job. If the Tories had come up with anyone competent enough – or even willing – to replace her as prime minister, it would have done. The price of her failure has been to be forced to carry on doing a job that she clearly hates and does uniquely badly. It's one of the most cruel and unusual punishments you could imagine.

Brexit is toxic. Kryptonite. Theresa May was being disingenuous when she said, "A bad deal is worse than a no deal." Every deal is a bad deal and a no deal is the worst of them all. The Brexiteers howl and wail about the "Chequers betrayal" from the sidelines, but the truth is they have no viable solutions of their own. They simply don't have a plan, other than to indulge in magical thinking. They have no answer to the Irish border problem, they argue black is white and that Britain would have the world at its feet if only people would be a little bolder and believe in the country again.

It's often said that a country gets the politicians it deserves. Who knew we had all been quite so urgently in need of punishment?

They insist Britain should be a lot tougher with the EU but without specifying how. The idea they often promote, that the EU has more to lose than we do from Britain crashing out with no deal, is self-evidently nonsense. And at the weekend we got to learn what advice Donald Trump – the self-styled "King Of The Deal" – gave the prime minister on how to play hardball: Britain should sue the EU, the orange narcissist declared.

Really? Of all the idiotic and deluded things Trump could have come up with, that was almost off the scale. Just think about. Sue the EU. For what? For the fact that Britain wants to leave an organisation it has been a member of for more than 40 years? And in what court should Britain sue? The European Court Of Human Rights? Good luck with that.

And if being out of ideas wasn't bad enough for the Brexiteers, they are also completely out of numbers. Put simply, the parliamentary arithmetic just doesn't stack up. There aren't enough MPs in favour of a hard Brexit in the Commons to force it through. Though there are enough to bring down the government. But that's an even tougher call as it raises the prospect of them facilitating a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government. Choices, choices.

The government is in chaos. Theresa May is now desperately trying to reassure the Brexiteers that her Chequers agreement is her final red line but everyone knows she's lying. Much of Chequers is pure fantasy. She knows it, the Brexiteers know it and Brussels knows it. The chances of the EU not insisting on concessions are less than zero. Then what? Something has to give. As there's no parliamentary majority for a hard Brexit, either the Brexiteers give way or topple the government.

Things are falling apart. It's often said that a country gets the politicians it deserves. Who knew we had all been quite so urgently in need of punishment?

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