One of the treasures of my constituency in south-west London is the maze at Hampton Court, where visitors pay for the entertainment value of getting hopelessly lost. The Brexit debate is a maze which has long since ceased to be entertaining; seldom has something so deadly serious become so profoundly boring to the public. But like Hampton Court, it poses a question: what is the way out?

Parliament’s collective inability to identify an exit is beginning to create a sense of panic. And the panic is being cynically fuelled by the Government with its “contingency planning” for “crashing out”. This is outrageously disingenuous. The Government knows very well that it is entirely within its own gift to stop such an extreme outcome by withdrawing Article 50, or seeking an extension, should the need arise.

Instead we have such surreal absurdities as the Development Secretary apparently offering Britain’s disaster relief services — normally used for earthquakes and floods in poor countries — to be used to counter pestilence and famine in Britain; or the Army being deployed on the streets. To face whom? Hungry people? Anti-Brexit protesters?

This political theatre is causing real damage. Representatives of the tourist trade tell me that they are being seriously hit by rumours (since denied) that the Government is advising against booking foreign holidays after March. Mercedes is showing how seriously it is taking the threat of disruption, by making its biggest ever investment in the UK: not to make cars but for a container vessel to hoard unsold stock.

The Government no doubt hopes that in an environment of panic sufficient numbers of MPs and their worried constituents will be persuaded to get behind Theresa May’s Brexit plan. It is also possible that the withdrawal agreement will get an 11th-hour shot in the arm from the EU in the form of an annex, giving plausible reassurances on the Irish backstop.

I met several Liberal heads of government last week in Brussels and got the impression that they were leaning over backwards to help. I suspect, however, that even if a solution could be found to the backstop problem, the many other objections to the May plan would then surface.

For Conservative MPs, this is a game of whack-a-mole, so short of a miracle, the deal isn’t going to progress through Parliament. And yet it remains the one concrete Brexit option available.

In this apparently insoluble parliamentary impasse too little attention is being paid to Jeremy Corbyn’s role and where the Labour Party’s parliamentary votes will go. How will their position of “constructive ambiguity” resolve itself?

Objectively (as the Marxists put it) Corbyn’s position is closely aligned with the Prime Minister. Both talk about “delivering Brexit”. The Labour demand for “a customs union” (though oddly not the perfectly good customs union of which we are already part) and continued workers’ rights is not so very far from the Prime Minister’s own rhetoric. But in our tribal political culture it would be inconceivable for him to support the Government.

So each day Corbyn confects greater outrage and plays for more time. His comment about “that stupid woman” has helped the Tories conceal their own agonies.

"The panic is being cynically fuelled by the Government with its “contingency planning” for “crashing out”"

This fence-sitting stems from a recognition inside Labour that Europe has the capacity to divide and destroy their party just as much as it does the Conservatives. It almost did so before Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair transformed Labour into a firmly pro-EU party. There is also the hope that a damaging “Tory Brexit” will yield political dividends, as Black Wednesday did in the Nineties. And there is a fear of needlessly provoking the Labour Brexit vote, which is significant.

But the position of masterly inactivity is becoming increasingly untenable. There is growing frustration amongst the army of young people who turned out to vote Corbyn last year that they are being let down: even betrayed. A Sunday Times poll showing that anti-Brexit voters are considering defecting en masse to the Liberal Democrats was a wake-up call. And there are the reports that the hostile social democratic backbenchers, who have buckled down under the present leadership, will be in rebellious mood again unless the party is seen to do all it can to stop Brexit happening.

These conflicting pressures are apparently causing serious tension in the bunker. There are hardliners who see revolutionary potential in the current mess and others who worry increasingly that Labour could be the casualty, not the beneficiary, of any damage. The current holding line is to wait until mid-January and then, in the wake of an expected Government defeat, launch a “no-confidence” motion. Then the way is open for other options, notably a referendum with the option to remain. It may be messy, but it is the cleanest and least damaging way out — passing responsibility back to the public.

Ironically, some members of the Government are making exactly a similar calculation: that allowing “no deal” would be disastrous for the Conservatives and the country. And they calculate that the odds against winning a referendum with the Brexit plan are much greater than winning a vote in Parliament. And if the public choose to Remain: fine.

That is why I believe political calculations will drive both Government and opposition towards a People’s Vote; some are arriving there out of conviction; some from desperation. Either way, it is the only democratic way out of the maze.