Action and … smile. Many people had been bewildered when a shaky, hand-held video of an almost human Theresa May had appeared on the Sunday news bulletins. Especially as she had had nothing to say. What they hadn’t realised was that it was a dress rehearsal. All part of a Downing Street plan to get the prime minister to appear, if not chatty – her carers weren’t miracle workers – then at least not language obsolete before her emergency Brussels summit.

Her confused, semi-detached ramblings at the last meeting of the EU Council had seriously pissed off the other 27 leaders, who in turn had chosen to humiliate her by sending her off to sit in a side room on her own for hours on end. Without even a takeaway pizza menu. This time there must be no repetition. The upgrade was in place.

On the plane to Belgium, the Leader in Name Only had felt good. At prime minister’s questions, Jeremy Corbyn had asked her nothing difficult about Brexit, choosing instead to focus on the forthcoming local elections. And as she had already been told the Conservatives were likely to be wiped out, there had been no real harm in her failing to give any answers. Sure she hadn’t exactly covered herself in glory as the Labour leader chalked up an easy win, but you had to take your blessings where you find them. Besides it was hard to pretend you were running the country when it was clear to everyone that it was Yvette Cooper, the Labour party and the EU who were calling the shots.

Theresa May agrees to October Brexit as Donald Tusk warns UK 'don't waste this time' Read more

As Lino got out the car and prepared to take the red carpet walk past the media into the EU council building, she felt her nerve fail. “You can do it,” her carers told her, doing their best to sound encouraging. But she couldn’t. The moment she saw the cameras, she froze and went straight to Maybot. Her mouth opened unnaturally wide in what she hoped would be mistaken for a fixed grin and her eyes rotated wildly, refusing to fix on any one object.

She was here to ask for an extension to 30 June, she insisted, accidentally lapsing into the script of two weeks previously. But still she ploughed on. Yes, she might have had that request turned down the last time she was in Brussels, but there was no harm in having another bash. Maybe the other 27 EU leaders would either forget that they’d already said no or realise they’d made a hideous mistake.

After that it was all downhill. Lino gabbled something about the possibility of a hypothetical longer extension that would never be needed because she was still determined to get a deal agreed by 22 May anyway. All the preparations for the UK taking part in the European elections were just an exercise in nostalgia. A last chance to savour the build-up to printing MEP ballot sheets and booking voting stations before we closed the door on Europe forever.

Everyone looked on amazed. This was delusional even by her own standards. What bit of there being no majority for her deal – or any other deal for that matter – did she not understand? Lino was undeterred. Her systems went rogue and the binary code began writing itself. She was looking forward to a brighter future. When was she looking forward to it? Some time at the end of May. Not her, the month. Or was it the other way round? She lapsed into silence and was led away.

Moments later Emmanuel Macron stepped on the red carpet. He had admired Donald Tusk’s style in openly calling for EU leaders not to humiliate the British prime minister as they had last time. And the time before that. There was nothing more humiliating for May than having an open letter instructing people not to humiliate her. So the French president chose to dig the knife in a little by reminding the UK that it was effectively on an asbo and there would be severe penalties if it misbehaved again. The rest of the EU had very important business to attend to and it wasn’t going to tolerate being messed around by a failed state. So he’d make her sweat a bit.

Not that there was much need for that, as Lino was already in a state by the time she began her presentation to the EU leaders. It wasn’t her incompetence that did for her. Hell, she’d got used to that by now. It was the look of pity on the faces of everyone in the room that broke her. Each and every one of them saw her for what she was. A leader stripped bare, reduced to little more than a museum curiosity. Merkel tried to break the ice by showing her a cat video on her iPad. Nothing doing.

“So what would you actually do with a long extension?” Lino was asked. She shrugged. Now she came to think of it, she really didn’t know. She wanted an extension because she wanted an extension and having an extension was better than not having an extension. That was about it. Oh, and having an extension would enable her to carry on as Lino for longer, as she’d only promised to go once a deal had been reached. Just imagine, a rolling extension to a rolling extension. She could be useless indefinitely.

It took until long after midnight before anyone could begin to make sense of what Lino had said. She has that effect on people. Most countries were happy to give up the unequal and agree to the never-ending extension, but Macron wanted to hold out a punishment beating. The UK had asked for a 30 June deadline that it didn’t want and he was going to give it a 30 June deadline he didn’t want. The classic Brexit lose-lose.

With eyelids closing and everyone reaching for the cyanide, a compromise was reached on a Halloween deadline that suited no one. And Macron was allowed to save face by putting the UK on the naughty step with a performance review in June. If our MEPs were behaving badly in the European parliament, then we were going to get a very public telling off and the whole world would laugh at us. Even more than they were already.

Lino was too tired to care. Not that she had a choice. The UK had long since ceased to have a meaningful say in anything. It was the EU that had taken back control. Now she could go back home and do nothing again. Another walking holiday in Wales perhaps. Everyone could down tools till the end of October. At which point the shit would hit the fan all over again.

After Donald Tusk had used his press conference to openly troll the UK – hell, there had to be a payoff for staying up so late – it was a rather beaten up British prime minister who appeared before the British media to give her version of events. Her voice was halting, staccato. Almost as if she was trying to fight back tears. There’s only so often anyone can spin another defeat as victory without an existential cost.

Things had gone entirely to plan, she pleaded. There was still a chance we could avoid the European elections and leave within weeks. All that was needed was a whole herd of pigs to fly. None of this had been her fault. The blame lay entirely with everyone who had made her prime minister. There was no need to ask her what she would be dressing up as for Halloween. She would be coming as herself. The living dead. If that didn’t terrify the EU into giving us another extension, nothing would.