What could possibly go wrong? After a series of votes that had decided almost nothing, other than that the House of Commons didn’t want a no-deal – though not enough to do anything much about it – and that she should go back to Brussels in search of a deal that wasn’t on offer, Theresa May made a short statement.

She was going to phone Michel Barnier – from a withheld number, as the EU’s chief negotiator had blocked her Downing Street landline as he was sick to death of having the same, pointless conversation – and if anyone from any other party had anything constructive to add, then she’d go through the motions of listening to them. Workers’ rights? Whatever they were, she loved them. And the backstop? Bad, very bad.

Nothing much had changed. We were back to almost where we had been two weeks previously. And two years before that. We were just a bit closer to a no-deal. Through inertia, as much by design. There was no hope. Only a vague sense of futility. Tumbleweed rolling, rolling, rolling. Time passing. The pound falling. Life and reason slipping away.

The prime minister had opened the debate by observing she had recently consulted widely with members of all parties and come to the conclusion that doing anything to keep the Conservative party together for an extra couple of weeks was more important than the national interest. She was now urging the House to vote down the deal she had insisted only a few days ago was the best Brexit deal that could be possibly negotiated and support instead an amendment instructing her to go back and reopen the withdrawal agreement that the EU had insisted couldn’t be reopened.

Even in the by-now familiar Alice in Wonderland world of Schrödinger’s Brexit, where everything can simultaneously be and not be, this was a bit of a stretch for many on the opposition benches. Chris Leslie wondered quite how she squared away her claim to be able to secure a deal by ditching the Northern Ireland backstop with her insistence that rejecting the backstop would inevitably end in a no-deal.

This was a category error, as it assumed May’s mind followed sophisticated rules of logic. Her algorithms are much more basic: a 1980s Amstrad programmed merely to secure her survival to the end of the day. At which point her memory is erased. Contradicting herself was the least of her concerns.

Here was the deal. She had originally intended for her plan B to be exactly the same as her plan A, but at the last minute it had come to her attention that Kit Malthouse, one of her junior ministers – along with a bit of help from the European Research Group – had done a bit of Brexit moonlighting and come up with a plan C. Or to give it its full name, plan C minus.

So she was now fully signed up to plan C minus that would entail her going back to the EU on a pointless mission to waste a few more weeks and make a no-deal more likely. With that in mind, she was backing the Graham Brady amendment – a simple idea from an extremely simple man – that would instruct her to go back to Brussels and seek some alternative arrangements. She didn’t know what these arrangements might be other than they would be alternative. Possibly involving a mixture of grunge and Morris dancing. Either way she was looking forward to losing a negotiation conducted entirely with herself.

This prompted predictable whoops from several of the Brexiters in her own party, with Nigel Evans declaring that Jerry didn’t like it up ’em. Nicky Morgan burst into tears. She was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and had lined up with the ERG because she could no longer tolerate the idea of remaining a backbencher. Just someone love me, she sobbed. Because she can no longer love herself.

After ignoring Yvette Cooper’s suggestion that negotiating an entirely new deal before March 31 was a fantasy too far and that an extension to Article 50 was inevitable, May went into her final peroration. She was going to win because she had only been lulling the EU into a false sense of security by bringing back a deal that had been defeated by 230 votes. Now she was going to give it 110% . This time she really, really wanted it. The X Factor’s gain was the country’s loss. Her new red lines were to get the EU to move their red lines.

In reply, Jeremy Corbyn had little to say. But he was damned if he was going to let anyone else get a word in edgeways, refusing to take interventions from anyone he didn’t much like. He has a small friendship group. It was unnecessarily petty and provoked a meltdown on the Tory benches. Cue a near shambles, with dozens of MPs going out of their way to embarrass themselves. Not that they generally need much invitation.

Brexit continues to make fools of all those with whom it comes in contact. Especially those that were already fools. Give it time and most MPs will be only able to speak in non-verbal grunts. A rare win-win. They’d probably make more sense that way. By the close there was almost no one in the house. Had anyone from the EU been bothering to listen in to such a dismal debate, they’d probably conclude they were far better off without us anyway. This is the new UK. Bringing down the average IQ of the whole of Europe.