There’s a woman sitting on the ledge threatening to commit suicide. A police negotiator crawls out to join her only to announce that he also thinks jumping is a really great option. That is pretty much the relationship between the governing Conservative Party in the United Kingdom and the Labour opposition today on Brexit. Although the two parties have different reasons, they are both hell-bent on leaving the European Union, which is why Prime Minister Theresa May, known as Maybot because of her robotic manner, appealed to Labour and other opposition parties this week to help her form post-Brexit policies on social care and workers’ rights to help cushion the fall.

May certainly needs the help. After Brexit, there is no doubt that the U.K. will be in a calamitous position, with greater debts, reduced international standing, declining productivity—British workers are 27 percent less productive than their German counterparts—and businesses deserting its shores for Europe, as I record daily on my site, Brexit Record. And yet it’s as if the jumper has suggested a walk in the park once she has leapt from the ledge.

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, a hero of the Bernie Sanders left despite being an ardent defender of Brexit himself, dismissed May’s offer of collaboration, apparently preferring to see her take the plunge alone. “Let’s face it, the government has run out of steam at a pivotal time,” he said, rebuffing her call for other parties to “contribute and not just criticize.” On the question of whether the prime minister has indeed run out of steam, practically everyone agrees—even her own side, which has not forgiven her for calling an election which lost the Conservative majority and gave an enormous boost to the most left-wing leader of the Labour Party ever. May’s days are clearly numbered, although even the Conservative Party will think twice before deposing her just as the negotiations to leave the E.U. start in earnest. There are elements on both sides of the House who want her to own Brexit for as long as possible.

“For all the warmth with which the left has championed Corbyn, they will almost certainly end up being let down.”

That says much about Brexit and its supporters, including Corbyn. No longer do we hear about the great opportunities of leaving the E.U.—now, it’s just about limiting the damage. Even the minister in charge of Brexit, my old debating partner David Davis, admitted that among the 27 members of the E.U., only Britain was likely to take this exceptional course. The inference, whether he likes it or not, is that leaving the E.U. is too disruptive, painful, and damaging for any sane society to consider as a viable option. There are no good arguments. The slogans of last year about British Parliamentary sovereignty and “taking back control” of our country seem as hollow as “Make America Great Again.” On both sides of the Atlantic, the words are achieving precisely the opposite of what they proclaim. In Britain, the government has published its draft legislation for leaving the E.U. and along with it sweeping new powers for the executive—so the idea of increased Parliamentary sovereignty is absurd. And “taking back control” of the country now seems like a sick joke, because the terms of Britain’s departure and everything about it lie in the hands of 27 European parliaments who must ratify the agreement, if indeed there is one.

Given the U.K.’s mental state, it is possible it will leave the E.U. without a deal, in which case we will confront an immediate economic catastrophe that will extend well beyond our shores. The main point to underline is that the country already has substantially reduced power and influence. This helplessness was captured in a speech by Jamie Dimon, the C.E.O. of J.P. Morgan, in Paris, which incidentally is making overtures to London’s bankers. “We have 16,000 people in the U.K.,” said Dimon, “but 75 percent of that is servicing E.U. companies, and if regulators say we’re not comfortable with your risk people, your lawyers, your compliance being in the U.K., they can make us move it. So we will simply be subject of what they do down the road. What happens next is totally up to the E.U., it’s not up to Britain.”