I N THE PAST year the British body politic has endured an astonishing list of maladies. The cabinet has lost a foreign secretary and two Brexit secretaries, not to mention lots of lesser fry. Parliament has voted to hold the government in contempt. The Conservative Party has held a vote of no confidence in the prime minister and left her badly wounded. And it is going to get worse. There is no parliamentary majority for any Brexit deal, and no way out of the impasse that won’t break promises—and possibly heads.

There are two popular explanations for this mayhem. One is that Europe was always destined to tear Britain apart, since too many Britons loathe the evolution of the common market into a European Union. A second is that Brexit has provided a catalyst for a long-simmering civil war between successful Britain (which is metropolitan and liberal) and left-behind Britain (which is provincial and conservative). Both explanations have merit. But there is also a third: that the country’s model of leadership is disintegrating. Britain is governed by a self-involved clique that rewards group membership above competence and self-confidence above expertise. This chumocracy has finally met its Waterloo.

Consider the decision that unleashed the current disaster. David Cameron gambled the future of the country on a simple referendum—51% and you’re out—whereas other countries, confronted with less momentous decisions, opt for two-stage votes and super-majorities. He made the gamble only in order to see off a challenge from the Europhobic wing of his Tory party and the defection of voters to the UK Independence Party. He set great store by his ability to sell the EU at home and to win reforms in Brussels, despite the fact that he had spent much of his career grumbling about Europe and antagonising the EU bureaucracy (including removing Tory MEP s from their broad right-wing coalition). His resignation ignited a civil war between his former Oxford chums Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, whose mutual destruction paved the way for Theresa May. Mr Cameron then rewarded other pals for losing an unlosable referendum, with peerages, knighthoods and, in the case of Ed Llewellyn, his Eton mucker and chief of staff, a seat in the Lords and the ambassadorship to France.

Or consider the current race for the Tory leadership that Mrs May launched last week when she was forced to promise her party that she would not lead it into the next election. The Tories are in turmoil not just because they are divided, but because the various candidates are inadequate. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, lacks principle; Sajid Javid, the home secretary, lacks charisma; and Mr Johnson, the right’s champion, is an embarrassment who this week declared that Britain shouldn’t balk at leaving the EU without a deal, on the grounds that it might produce only a temporary shortage of Mars bars.

Britain’s leadership crisis is rooted in the evolution of the old establishment into a new political class. This evolution has been widely hailed as a triumph of meritocracy over privilege, and professionalism over amateurism. In fact, the new political class has preserved many of the failures of the old establishment. It is introverted and self-regarding, sending its members straight from university to jobs in the Westminster village, where they marry others of their kind. It relies on bluff rather than expertise, selecting those trained in blaggers’ subjects like PPE and slippery professions like public relations and journalism (Mr Cameron worked in PR before going into politics, whereas Mr Gove and Mr Johnson, along with his brother, another Tory MP , were hacks).

At the same time, the political class has abandoned one of the virtues of the old establishment. The old ruling class preserved a degree of gentlemanly self-restraint. Senior politicians left office to cultivate their gardens and open village fetes. The new political class, by contrast, is devoid of self-restraint, precisely because it thinks it owes its position to personal merit rather than the luck of birth. Thus meritocracy morphs into crony capitalism. Tony Blair has amassed a fortune since leaving office and George Osborne, Mr Cameron’s former chancellor of the exchequer, is following eagerly in his footsteps.

The triumph of the new elite coincided with the erosion of other paths into the leadership class. The Labour Party traditionally recruited working-class talent through the trade unions and local government. Its 1945-51 government was successful in part because it boasted big figures like Ernest Bevin, who honed his leadership skills in the unions, and Herbert Morrison, who ran the London County Council. The Conservatives recruited from a broad range of constituencies, from the squirearchy to the armed forces and the business world (both Joe Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin came from highly successful Midlands-based companies).

A national bluff, called

There are some welcome signs that the political system is beginning to develop antibodies to the rule of the chumocracy. The Labour Party has broken with the Blairite habit of dropping metropolitan MP s into regional constituencies and has begun promoting first-rate local talent such as Angela Rayner (who left school at 16 with no qualifications and a child on the way). The Tory party has succeeded in recruiting impressive former soldiers such as Tom Tugendhat, as well as members of ethnic minorities such as Mr Javid, the son of an immigrant bus driver. The creation of powerful local mayors is devolving decision-making from London and creating new avenues into the national political elite.

Unfortunately, this self-correction comes too late. The failure of Britain’s political class not only opened the way to the Brexit vote. It also opened the way to the capture of the Labour Party by Jeremy Corbyn and his far-left clique. Many Britons despair that they face a choice between Brexit and chaos under the Tories and socialism and chaos under Labour. If next year goes as badly as this one, they may end up with both.