In an ideal world, I wouldn’t be thinking about Brexit. There are other things, more interesting, more pressing, more concrete, more important: crises in the prison service, in higher education; a fresh massacre in Syria; a world out there in urgent need of the full force of the creativity and action of which we are all capable. Yet this “process” (process my arse; it never proceeds) halts any other business. We are trapped in this hellscape of middle-aged men, formless bilge about sovereignty vying with rabid fantasies of deregulation to see which can come out on top as everything of any meaning or value slides to the bottom.

Just when you think the worst of it is total immobilisation in the path of an oncoming train, the European Research Group reveals its hand: 62 hard-Brexit MPs want to show the train who’s boss. The text of their letter to the PM was belligerent yet nebulous, like a toxic cloud. But the subtext was pin sharp. There are more than enough names on this letter to force a leadership contest. May isn’t just a zombie leader; she’s their zombie.

They want to make their own rules, while maintaining frictionless trade with people for whom the rules are part of the deal. They want to forge imaginary but gigantic new bonds with far-off lands. If that means torching all the unions, compacts, agreements and treaties that make up the fabric of life as we know it, so be it. We will spend time scoping out exactly how unworkable, how irrational their ransom letter is; they will cook up 10 good reasons why humanitarianism is dead and chlorinated chicken is tasty. Every day they deliver a fresh outrage, and by the time we’ve run to catch up with it, they’ve committed three more.

Those who oppose the hard Brexit sought by the kamikaze 62 have a best-case scenario, which unfolds like this: Tory soft-Brexiters, boosted in numbers by the unsightly frothing of the ERG, join centrist Labour to revolt, taking Jeremy Corbyn with them. A milder form of Brexit – let’s call it Sane Max – emerges, with or without Theresa May at the helm.

Soft Brexit is a myth: membership without influence, responsibilities without rights, affiliation without hinterland, Norway minus, minus, minus. Soft Brexit is a lesser state of national impoverishment to appease unappeasable fringe Conservatives. Soft Brexit is like trying to negotiate with a hijacker so that, somehow, only half your industries are destroyed. The European council meets in March; 27 leaders will sign off a transition period and move on to trade talks guidelines. They have no clear information from us and no reason to trust what they hear. They have to assume we want out of the single market and customs union because, every time our government says otherwise, that position immediately disintegrates. They could not offer us a soft Brexit, even if they wanted to.

The hard right has met every reasoned objection with a more extreme stance: there’s a problem with Ireland? Scrap the Good Friday agreement. Complexities around transition rules? Take no rules; make new rules; sod transition. There is no pragmatic thinking here; it’s a to-do list with one bullet point: “destroy everything”. But that does not mean there is no practical impact: while it looks as though there’s nothing happening but a scrum, underneath they have frozen all progress so that their Brexit becomes the only option left. The longer they hold the government in this confected deadlock, the more inevitable their agenda becomes. They will not be coaxed into a softer stance: they have nothing to gain from it. If they want a freeze, give them one: fight not for soft Brexit, nor Brexit postponed. Fight for no Brexit.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Under fire … Justin Forsyth, deputy executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund. Photograph: Li Muzi/Xinhua News Agency/PA Images

Sexual harassment isn’t just between two people, it touches everyone

Justin Forsyth, before moving to Unicef, was chief executive at Save the Children. When it emerged last week that Brendan Cox had left that charity following complaints about his behaviour with female employees, there floated some mild curiosity about whether Forsyth could or should have done more. It turned out that this would have been difficult, because the chief exec also faced complaints.

He was accused of texting women in the office about their outfits, emailing them when they didn’t reply, calling them in to meetings if they didn’t email. You can get lost in the weeds of how undermining it is to be told that you are wearing nice clothes. Some people think that nothing short of actual physical contact is sexual and nothing short of rape is a violation of power. I tend towards the view that, in a professional environment, a decent person, knowing that the livelihoods of many others depend upon his favour, leaves sex out of it.

The argument that these cases erode charities and all they stand for is without merit. But that does not mean there is nothing we can learn from them about organisational culture. Why do situations persist; why do bystanders stand by; why do superiors turn a blind eye; why do perpetrators escape all censure and slip effortlessly into some other, better job? It’s because the reality of sexual harassment is the opposite of the cliche – a private, ambiguous moment between one person and another; it touches everyone. All the people who notice but have insufficient power to say anything feel tainted by their own silence; all the people not in on the secrets are out of the culture. A workplace whose leaders are not living its values has a shadow moral economy where accountability is for suckers.

Play Video 0:34 The Queen makes front row appearance at London fashion week – video

Why the Queen was ever so touched on the front row



The Queen in the front row at London fashion week was exciting just for its radical incongruity, like seeing a snow leopard in Lidl. But it was the tickled look on her face that made it. She has obviously wanted to sit next to Anna Wintour (pictured) for years, but until Philip stepped down from public life it would not have been worth the aggro. Between the androgyny, the diversity and the underboobs, he would have had a political incorrectness carnival; the merriment would have shorted his brain circuitry. Imagine where else she can go, unshackled from the salty remarks. Pride; the London mime festival, a spot of dim sum …

• This article was amended on 23 February 2018. An earlier version referred to 27 heads of state where leaders were meant.

