Alexander the Great, when faced with a rope knotted with such complexity that it was impossible to see how to untie it, drew out his sword and cut it in two. This myth, like all myths, probably didn’t happen as told, but it has survived as a useful metaphor for solving a problem by thinking outside of restrictive but false parameters.

Can we think of Brexit as a Gordian knot? It’s certainly a problem of unfathomable complexity. And like the original, it isn’t just one problem, but rather several complex knots which are, in turn, knotted around each other. From Ireland to air traffic control to Euratom, any single aspect of Brexit could occupy a competent government for longer than the two years we have to solve the whole situation, and this government is far from competent.

What would a simple solution be, though? The hard-leave fantasists simply pretend that none of these complexities exist, waving away issues like the existence of the Republic of Ireland as mere trifles. It’s no surprise that many of these people are supporters of Donald Trump: like the US president, they presume that anything too complex for them to understand must be easy, and that people making reasoned procedural objections are driven by treasonous ideology.

People want more of a say in the institutions that govern their lives, and FPTP works against this

The countervailing fantasy on the other side is that we, well, just don’t go ahead with Brexit. This is unworkable because of British electoral maths. An anonymous Tory minister writing in the Times summed up the situation as a “‘damned if we do, damned if we don’t” bind. “If we try to cancel exit we destroy ourselves; if we go ahead with it we destroy the country.”

The Sky News political editor, Faisal Islam, writing on Twitter after the general election, pointed out that “most leave voters [are] not Brexiteers … for millions it is not the issue that defines them”. Only a small percentage of those who voted to leave did so because they believe we should be a tax haven “free” to sell off UK public services to predatory investment firms, while keeping wages and labour rights nailed to the floor. Unfortunately, the minority that do want this are still numerous enough to plausibly cause a 10-15% swing against the Tories. That would be enough to not only put Labour in the lead but, potentially, give them an overall majority.

Labour’s position is no less of a fudge, for very similar reasons. As much as people fight over whether the working class is better served by listening to their “genuine concerns” or staying in the single market to protect the economy, Labour’s lack of a firm position is a simple case of electoral necessity.

The big issue underlying this is the lack of control people in Britain feel they have over their own affairs, and the resultant disaffection. Holding binary referendums on divisive and complicated issues is precisely the wrong solution to this problem. The Brexit referendum, it is widely agreed, was a proxy vote for a number of domestic issues that weren’t on the ballot. The British people, largely disheartened by years of feeling abandoned and disenfranchised, voted remain or leave for reasons that had, in many cases, little or nothing to do with the EU.

As Labour MPs Clive Lewis and Jonathan Reynolds put it, “The era of just two big parties representing the vast bulk of the country is over, and we now see the pent-up consequences of pretending that is still the case.” People want more of a say in the institutions that govern their lives, and the first-past-the-post electoral system works against this. People turned out to vote for or against Brexit because they wanted a say that our regular system denies them.

The answer to this cannot simply be a second referendum. Brexit isn’t the sickness but the symptom: putting it back in its box won’t solve the underlying issue. A necessary first step to solving this problem must be the introduction of a more proportional electoral system.

The arguments for first-past-the-post are that it provides majority governments who must appeal to the “centre ground” and, having done so, have the authority to get their agendas passed. That argument holds less water now when we have a minority government pushing through a regressive agenda in pseudo-coalition with the DUP.

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Likewise, the idea that the last general election represented a return to two-party politics remains an artefact of the electoral system. Brexit is not the only issue that divides the country across party lines, and the uneasy party coalitions are under increasing strain. A more proportional system would almost certainly see a fracturing of the Conservatives and Labour into smaller parties, and necessitate much more alliance building, not just in the formation of governments but in getting legislation passed.

First-past-the-post adherents call this a downside. But the population cannot be divided neatly into two groups which map on to a Labour/Tory or leave/remain binary. A messier parliament of disaggregated parties would accurately represent a messy electorate, for better and worse. It would certainly put paid to the idea that free market ideologues who want to sell the NHS to American hedge funds represent a majority of the population simply because they happen to control the Tory party.

While there are those within both major parties who have expressed support for a move to more proportionality – including the shadow chancellor – wider acceptance will be an uphill struggle, because it is contrary to the interests of those in charge. However, if Brexit is about allowing British people to control their own affairs, they would be much better served by disrupting Westminster rather than ditching Brussels.