The chaos that characterises the government’s approach to Brexit was abundantly on show in a BBC interview given by Greg Hands, the international trade minister, last Wednesday. He repeatedly refused to say whether the government wanted the UK to remain in the customs union during a transition period after leaving the EU. It appeared an absurd volte-face from the prime minister’s Florence speech last September, where she said that during a transition “access to one another’s markets should continue on current terms”.

If it was indeed a volte-face, it was at least temporary. By Friday, the Brexit secretary, David Davis, confirmed that the government’s position remained that access should continue on current terms.

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It sounds simple. But it is becoming increasingly clear that even agreeing the terms of a status quo transition will be far from painless. It was supposed to be the easy bit; something both sides could move past quickly in order to give businesses medium-term certainty and to focus attention on the much harder questions about what the final relationship with the EU will look like.

Yet it emerged on Friday that there are a number of critical sticking points even on the transition. The government, it turns out, actually wants a significant shift from the status quo. It wants to limit the rights of citizens from the rest of the EU who move to the UK during the transition period, despite the fact that other non-member countries that have the same level of access to the single market are all signed up to freedom of movement. And it wants the right to object to new EU rules and laws during the transition.

As the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said on Friday, time is running out. These differences need to be resolved imminently or the timetable for the final agreement, which must be agreed by October in order to allow for ratification, will be in jeopardy.

The government’s approach to the transition is a symptom of a much bigger problem. Held hostage by the right flank of her party, Theresa May lacks any authority to present a vision of Brexit. Almost a year after triggering article 50, the government position remains utterly inconsistent. It wants the advantages of Norway-style membership of the European Economic Area while retaining the freedoms that come with a Canadian-style free trade agreement, including the ability to set immigration controls.

EU negotiators have been consistent in telling us that no such option exists; if we want unfettered access to the single market, we must be a rule-taker like Norway; if we want more control over our borders, we must pay the price in terms of limited economic access. But May has consistently failed to acknowledge the reality of this trade-off. She continues to cling to the illusion that we can have it all.

Nowhere is this conundrum more precarious than in Northern Ireland. The government has said that Britain will be leaving the single market and customs union. But Barnier has been clear that border checks are unavoidable if Britain leaves the customs union. Everyone is agreed that border checks in Ireland would jeopardise the Good Friday agreement and the EU is writing into the draft withdrawal agreement that in the absence of other solutions the default will be full regulatory alignment between Northern Ireland and the republic. But that would imply a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK that would be unacceptable to many, including the DUP and the SNP in Scotland.

And so the Brexit pantomime continues with little regard for these real and urgent contradictions. Davis accuses the EU of being “discourteous” for reasonably putting forward draft sanctions against the UK if it were to flout EU rules during the transition. Cabinet discussion after cabinet discussion sheds no light whatsoever on the government’s desired end state. Government ministers give out contradictory messages. Meetings in Brussels where the government is supposed to be describing its end vision for Brexit get cancelled.

The lack of political leadership from the government has been matched on the opposition benches. Labour continues to fudge its position to, it feels, its own political advantage. But its failure to adopt a firm stance over membership of the single market and customs union is letting the government off the hook. At some point, the Labour leadership must consider how the party weighs its short-term electoral interests against the long-term interests of its core voters: official forecasts shared with MPs last week leave no doubt that it is Labour’s strongholds that will be among the parts of the country worst hit.

As the leadership vacuum deepens, the media debate continues to grow more acrimonious, couched in the toxic language of traitors, enemies of the people and secret plots to thwart democracy. We have never felt further from the common ground that must be established to bridge the margin between those who voted for Remain and Leave.

No one seems up to the task, least of all the prime minister, who increases the risk of a popular backlash against any final deal every additional day she pretends to the country that Britain can have it all in order to hold her warring party together. It is irresponsible in the extreme.