[scoundrel]

I find the May administration ideologically disgraceful with its grammar schools fixation and "consultations" over the dementia tax when the Dilnot Report is now seven years old and offers fair and reasonable solutions. But they face problems which the Labour Party would have to face as well if it was in government. The fault lines over Brexit are internal, not external. Whatever Mrs May decides will be unacceptable to a significant cohort of her own MPs and, if she gets legislation carried in the House of Commons it will almost certainly be because some Labour MPs will support it whether their party allows them to or not. Most Labour MPs are Remainers but there are quite a few who aren't. Seven of them defied the authority of their party and voted for the EU withdrawal bill last year, and others abstained.

Mr Corbyn would be in a worse bind if he were in office and trying to implement his manifesto promise to respect the referendum vote. He has the New Labour faction to deal with, 47 of whom voted against the Article 50 bill, showing their own determination not to respect the referendum vote.

When you are really struggling to marshal support inside your own party, it becomes harder than ever to confront divisive issues. Britain's negotiating position on the Customs Union and the Single Market are just such issues. When she called the 2017 General Election I imagine Mrs May was expecting to win a majority big enough to keep her party rebels, both Leavers and Remainers in their place. But she ran a bloody awful campaign, was woeful on television and in the media and proposed a crypto-fascist barking mad right wing equivalent of the hardline socialist 1983 Labour suicide note manifesto, right down to wanting to bring back hunting foxes with hounds.

One way or another this country will leave the EU and this in the end will safeguard our sovereignty and our rights as a nation. It will lead to economic disruption though and it is the job of the UK government to manage the process efficiently and avoid unnecessary refinements of torture. Bickering now over matters we should have agreed internally last year will not help us next month when Mr Davies meets Mr Barnier again. The European Commission watches our moves.