David Davis isn’t noted for his grasp of detail. Or for his grasp of anything very much. But at Brexit questions in the Commons, he took his lack of awareness to new heights by seeming to forget there had been a meeting of the inner cabinet the previous day. He’s going to get a hell of a shock when someone gently informs him that not only was he there but he voted against the prime minister’s preferred customs partnership option. Before long he will be struggling to remember his own name. If only that were possible for the rest of us.

Brexit questions used to guarantee a nearly full house in the chamber, but the number of MPs bothering to attend have now dwindled to a mere handful. There’s only so much futility anyone can take and most have long since decided there’s only a certain number of times they can slip through Davis’s looking-glass world before they don’t come back.

Of those few – those unhappy few – who did decide to take one for the team and risk their mental health, almost all wanted an urgent update on the customs union. With the government no nearer to deciding what kind of future trading relationship it wants with the EU nearly two years after the referendum, time is running out to reach an agreement by October.



Q&A What is a customs union? Show Hide A customs union means that countries agree to apply no or very low tariffs to goods sold between them, and to collectively apply the same tariffs to imported goods from the rest of the world. International trade deals are then negotiated by the bloc as a whole. For the EU, this means deals are negotiated by by Brussels, although individual member state governments agree the mandate and approve the final deal. The EU has trade deals covering 69 countries, including Canada and South Korea, which the UK has been attempting to roll over into post-Brexit bilateral agreements. Proponents of an independent UK trade policy outside the EU customs union say Britain must forge its own deals if it is to take advantage of the world’s fastest-growing economies. However they have never explained why Germany manages to export more than three times the value in goods to China than Britain does, while also being in the EU customs union. Jennifer Rankin

“The customs union is a very complex issue,” said Davis, confidently channelling his inner Alice. “So it should be no surprise that it is taking a long time.” A few MPs began reaching for their medication. It was going to be a long hour. They didn’t need to be told how complicated it all was as they knew that already. The issue was that the government had taken so long to getting round to realise that fact for itself.

Davis looked hurt by the criticism and insisted that, despite the customs partnership having been kicked into the long grass the previous day, the government was still actively considering both the customs partnership and a more streamlined model. “Both have their merits and their drawbacks,” he declared. One of which is that the EU has already in effect ruled both proposals out. The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, looked at Davis with alarm and pity. Maybe now wasn’t the moment to get him up to speed.

On and on Davis went, taking off his glasses, putting them on again and repeating the phrase “deep and special partnership” over and over again until it sounded meaningless even to him. “We are acting in the best interests of the country,” he said. Now it was the turn of the hardline Tory Brexiters to look confused. They had been certain the government was really just doing anything it could to keep them happy and to stay in power.

Having talked himself round in circles to a position where everything was equally possible and impossible, Davis sat down and handed over to his junior minister. In a former life, Robin Walker may have been fully sentient, but his boss’s intellectual impairment has proved contagious and he can now barely string a sentence together.

Both options on future customs relationship remain alive, says Davis Read more

What did the people living on both sides of the Irish border think of the government’s proposed solutions, asked Labour’s Karin Smyth. “Um, er, um, er, everyone understands the importance of a frictionless border,” Walker mumbled. “Um, er, um, er, we’re still talking.” Though not in a language anyone but he and Davis understands. Walker was then asked what steps had been taken to find a technological solution to the Irish border. “None whatsoever,” he said proudly. Davis patted him on the back. That’s my boy.

To general amazement and concern, Walker was made to look an intellectual giant by the arrival to the dispatch box of the department’s most recent ministerial recruit. Having dismissed the government’s own research into the economic impact of leaving the customs union as rubbish, Suella Braverman then made her big pitch for the future. Outer space. No matter that we can’t even solve the Irish border, Britain would conquer the universe and be a world leader in trade with Venus and Neptune. To infinity and beyond. Just another day in Brexit in Wonderland.