It’s been such a year of horrors that it’s become easy to lose track of just how weird things are. But Thursday was one of those days when we slipped a little further through the looking-glass. Only a year ago many opposition MPs were still hoping for a second referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU on the off-chance that the public might have changed their mind. Now those same MPs are the ones pleading for the government to just get a deal – any deal, however crap – to avoid a no-deal Brexit on 31 December. Their expectations have fallen that low. At the same time most Tory MPs, who had previously bigged up the “oven-ready” deal and had openly boasted of a new trade deal being the easiest deal in the world and that a no deal was unthinkable, are now urging Boris Johnson to go for that very same no-deal Brexit. No more mucking about with an EU that is stubbornly hanging on to notions of fish, governance and level playing fields – the same issues it has been going on about for years – and just leave on World Trade Organization terms. So we’re in an upside down world where Labour appears to have more interest in the government clinching a last-minute deal than the Conservatives. Go figure. In the Commons there was a distinct sense of deja vu as, for the second time in a week, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, had secured an urgent question to ask her opposite number, Michael Gove, to give an update on the state of the Brexit negotiations. And for the second time in a week, the Govester declined to attend in person and sent his understudy, Penny Mordaunt, to do his dirty work for him. And for the second time in a week, Mordaunt had precisely nothing new to say. Mainly because there was nothing new to say but partly because even if there was, Mordaunt would be among the last to know. So she rattled through what she had learned from the 24-hour news outlets. Boris Johnson had flown to Brussels for dinner with the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and had achieved as little as everyone had expected. Other than that, the previous day’s deadline had been moved to Sunday. So in the meantime we were where we were, with the UK and EU still a long way from any agreement, but a deal was there to be done provided the EU gave way on all their red lines. After all, it was the least they could do given that the UK had withdrawn its threat to break international law in an agreement it had negotiated less than a year ago. This was all a bit much for Reeves and you could sense the despair in her voice as she responded. How come we knew more about what the two leaders had eaten – fish, followed by an Australian-style pavlova: nice shade there from the EU – than what they had actually said to each other? And how come Boris had returned and gone straight into hiding? Shouldn’t the prime minister be showing a little more leadership by making a public statement to reassure the country that there were at least some contingency plans if the shit really hit the fan? What were the plans for the nations’s security? After all, the EU had published its contingency plans, which seemed to amount to things getting steadily worse for the UK up until a time when someone came up with anything better. At which point Mordaunt lost the plot and started blaming Labour for the failure to agree a trade deal. In Pennyworld, Labour was guilty of treason for daring to hope for a positive outcome to the negotiations. The same negotiations she herself had just said she wanted to end positively. Labour’s crazy idea that a deal was better than no deal had completely undermined the government’s position. By trying to accommodate a bad deal on the grounds that it was the least worst option, they had somehow managed to make a no deal far more likely. This was like blaming the Poles for the German invasion of Poland in 1939. At times like this, satire is pointless. Just transcribing the lunacy is more absurd than anything I could possibly make up. “We all want a deal,” said Labour’s Hilary Benn. Only it was increasingly clear that wasn’t true, as Tory after Tory stood up to say they would be far happier with no deal and that they would be devastated by any deal other than one that entailed the EU capitulating on all its demands. It’s yet to dawn on them that the whole point of a trade deal is that it inevitably involves external governance and a loss of sovereignty, but that these losses are outweighed by the gains. Thereafter we slid further and further down the rabbit hole. Labour’s Bill Esterson wondered if we could have an economic impact assessment of any deal with the EU that we turned down, just so we could compare it to the 2% loss in GDP that the Office for Budget Responsibility was predicting for a no deal. Just so that we could have a sliding doors moment when we could see how much better life might be without lorries full of food and medicines parked up on the French border. Mordaunt didn’t think this was a good idea. Far better to jump into a no deal without any regrets. Almost as an afterthought, Mordaunt added that Sunday might not actually be the final deadline after all. We might decide to carry on talking pointlessly up until 31 December because that might make the end of transition even more dramatic. If no less inevitable. Either Mordaunt was lying to herself and the Commons or she is a wee bit dim if she thinks the EU is going to significantly change its position in the next three weeks. So the thought lingered that Reeves and Mordaunt would be back next Monday with the same urgent question and the same lack of answers. And if that doesn’t give you nightmares, it does me.