It's difficult not to be a little depressed at this point, particularly after that speech, but it's our responsibility in this place to offer at least some direction and some hope. Brexit started with people offering false and contradictory promises: we could leave the EU and still have unfettered access to its markets without being subject to its laws. Now, Parliament yesterday succumbed to this same strain of Brexit fantasy. The UK Parliament voted last night that (a) a 'no deal' Brexit is not an option, and (b) the Irish backstop must be removed from the withdrawal agreement, even though the EU has said, and said again within minutes of the parliamentary vote, that that is not an option. We've gone from gridlock to groundhog day repeatedly throughout this sorry saga, and we'll be there again in two weeks' time. Westminster has kicked the can so many times down the road that can kicking should become the new national sport.

Now, Mrs May will go back to Brussels for the second time and try over the next fortnight to convince her EU counterparts to reopen negotiations, which they will again refuse to do, and the end result of this is that we are skidding towards a 'no deal' Brexit that Parliament has said it doesn't want but will be the default outcome unless article 50 is extended, which, paradoxically, Parliament voted against last night. Westminster, in essence, yesterday willed the end of blocking 'no deal' without willing the means of backing a viable alternative. The Brady amendment is not only undeliverable, it's indecipherable. That would never deter, of course, the likes of Boris Johnson, for whom having one's cake and eating it is an article of faith. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the temporary coalition that Theresa May has cobbled together with the ERG and the DUP is the unspeakable in pursuit of the unachievable. What precisely are these 'alternative arrangements'? Brexit negotiators spent two years trying to find these mythical alternatives to the backstop, and in the end even the British Government had to give up. Do we really believe they're now going to be miraculously discovered in the next two weeks? The backstop is there. The backstop is there to ensure that, if a broader trade agreement hasn't been reached, and other solutions can't be found, Ireland—north and south—doesn't see the return of a hard border; i.e., if alternative arrangements don't work, the backstop kicks in. What the EU is now being invited to agree to by the UK Government is alternative arrangements in the event that alternative arrangements don't work—in other words an insurance policy without insurance, a safety net without a net, a backstop without any back.

Now, some Tories fantasise that Mrs May is now going to go to Brussels and extract a u-turn out of them on the scale of Mrs Thatcher's famous Fontainebleau moment. But whatever else could be said of Thatcher—and there is a lot that could be said—she was at least consistent: the lady's not for turning. Mrs May has just conducted the mother of all u-turns. Up until three days ago, she was saying the backstop was necessary and she owed it to the people of Northern Ireland. Now she says she wants it binned. No wonder EU member states are unimpressed. The only real choice left now is either a 'no deal' Brexit or a people's vote. Politics is broken at this point in time. But, in 58 days' time, it will be more than mere politics that will be at stake, and people will not forgive us, and history will judge us harshly if we did not do everything we could to stop an avoidable disaster, which is why it is right, with Westminster stuck, that we come together here in this Parliament to find a way out of the mire. So, today is a positive step, but let's all remind ourselves of the most important word in this motion, 'immediately'. We have so little time. We need to act decisively, without delay, today.