I’m told that as a remainer I ought to be pleased with the result of this election. Pleased? The country is to be run by the Tories, led by a woman who ran through fields of hubris and fell over, only to be propped up by postcolonial sectarians – until the chaff settles, anyway. Pleased? I’m revolted.

Why has this result befallen us? Because even with a Tory administration that has been quite disgustingly Machiavellian ever since David Cameron snatched his hung parliament moment in 2010, more people in this country are still voting for the Conservatives than for any other party. Why don’t they see what is being destroyed? Why don’t they see that this country is becoming a nightmare place for vulnerable people to live in? On a personal note, as a Scot, I abhor the fact that Scotland delivered more seats to the Conservatives in this election than it has for decades. The only consolation is that this lot will never last five years.

I feel that Britain has voted Irony. I hate the way people keep talking about “the kids”, when they mean young adults. I’m supposed to be thrilled that Corbyn got the kids out. Maybe he should have got the kids out a year ago during that terrible, dishonest EU referendum, that Cameron promised in order to be prime minister for what turned out to be an extra 13 inglorious months. The kids have voted for the man who made it plain that he didn’t really care about the EU, one way or the other, even though the kids who did vote last time voted overwhelmingly to stay in Europe. Not that I blame the kids. There are plenty of other reasons to vote Corbyn, heaven knows. Nonetheless, I simply can’t hail him as any part of the solution to the Brexit problem.

Victory for a progressive alliance was so close that I could almost taste it, when that exit poll came out. I would have been happy to have Corbyn as prime minister, if the SNP and Lib Dems had made remaining in the single market their price. For one thing, we’d find out if he really does have the ability to be prime minister sooner rather than later. So close. So close. Vince Cable could even have been chancellor. Though I may be straying into fantasy at this point. It was a long night.

As for my own tiny personal vote, I can’t believe that 48 hours ago I was still agonising over the slim possibility that if I voted Lib Dem to “send Kate Hoey a message”, that might contribute to a split progressive vote that would let the Tories in. Oh, the foolishness. Hoey, who sat on a boat with that narcissistic nihilist Nigel Farage, won handsomely. The wildly enthusiastic Labour Brexiteer, in the constituency with a higher remain vote than any other in the country, increased her majority to a massive 20,250. Even so, she wouldn’t shake the Lib Dem candidate’s hand after her acceptance speech. Her victory, she says, shows that the country has “moved on” from Brexit as an issue. And she may be right. But why, as someone who believes that Brexit will be hugely damaging to the most vulnerable people, should I be pleased about that?

Yet Hoey isn’t necessarily right. One trouble is that our democratic choices in this country are so limited that 100 people can vote for the same representative in the same constituency, each for entirely different particular reasons. This election has been a retreat to the binary. People know very well that only a vote for one of the two main parties really counts. Our crude, divisive first-past-the-post system is being bolstered even as it slides further and further into debauchery and anachronism. People don’t even know who voted Labour because of Corbyn and who voted Labour despite him.

How much longer can we stagger on like this, with vote after vote pushing us deeper into the mire, instead of on to the strong and stable sunny uplands those grinning con artists promised?

We don’t even know who will be prime minister in three months’ time. We could be just one or two byelection upsets away from doing this whole thing again within weeks, and all that’s guaranteed is uncertainty: the new normal, at least for a while.