With seven days to avoid no-deal Brexit, the House of Commons actually flooded

Were Brexit a farce, you’d throw the script away. Too stupid, too far-fetched

On Wednesday, the start of Theresa May’s meeting with Jeremy Corbyn was marked by an epochal thunderclap over the House of Commons and a sudden shower of a very rare form of ice-encrusted snow, known as graupel. It was, quite literally, the day hail freezes over. And then, 24 hours later, came the floods.

Yes, with seven working days in which to avoid no-deal Brexit, the House of Commons actually flooded. They were in the middle of a debate on when and when not to physically restrain children when a great torrent of water began gushing through the ceiling, flooding the green benches of the press gallery, directly above the speaker’s chair.

Seventy-two hours earlier, it was from here that the best view was to be had of the 11 naked protestors who superglued their bare backsides to the security glass at the front of the public gallery opposite. Now, it was underwater.

If it was a comedy farce, you’d throw the script away. Too stupid, too far-fetched.

The former education secretary Justine Greening was addressing the house when all eyes in the chamber turned skyward again, for the second time this week. Where Monday’s denuded conflagration took its time to announce itself under the cover of silence behind soundproof glass, this time it was the instant noise that got their attention.

And it was the noise of a full-on deluge smacking into leather, a sound that at least some of the Tory MPs present looked like they had never heard before.

The deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle did not take his time to suspend the sitting, the MPs scurrying out just as the journalists scurried in for a close-up look at yet more credulity-defying scenes. They never came back. That was them done for the day.

The adjacent canteen was underwater too. It has a certain cross-Channel ferry feel to it at the best of times, the water streaming in through the lights in the plasterboard roof were like something straight out of a low budget disaster movie. If anything it was a welcome distraction from Brexit, that being the highest budget disaster movie ever made, £600m a week, and still lacking an ending or any discernible plot.

According to Nikki da Costa, Theresa May’s former director of legislative affairs, and all-round parliamentary procedure expert, the premature closure of the house may mean there will now not be time for any more indicative votes to take place before next week’s European Council summit – the one to which Theresa May is meant to be bringing either a passed withdrawal deal or a proper, approved plan for what Britain wants to do next to avoid no deal.

She may yet find herself unable to do so. She may have to tell 27 heads of state that the House of Commons was unable to come to a decision on Brexit, because it flooded. How these words have just exited my fingertips I will never fully know.

On the plus side, the press gallery was uncharacteristically empty when the heavens opened into what has begun to feel rather a lot like hell. Thursday’s “action” was all in the House of Lords. Peers had just one day to approve legislation that would prevent a no-deal Brexit, which naturally, meant they had just one day to engage in pitched battle between those determined to waste the day away and kill off the legislation, and those determined to stop them wasting time.

The procedures are so arcane, and so absurd, it is a disservice to us all even to attempt to type them out. Most of the afternoon was taken up with votes on whether votes should be held, and votes on whether votes on whether votes should be held, and then some votes on that. Were the whole thing to be likened to ordering a meal, they spent the first five hours debating whether or not to even go out for dinner, a further four choosing the restaurant, with the arrival of anything like a menu not due to happen until well into the night.

Special mention goes to Viscount Ridley, staunch Brexiteer, defender of democracy, taker back of control, genuflecter at the feet of parliamentary sovereignty. He told the house how his title was given to him “by Queen Victoria”. Yes, he’s a hereditary peer, of course.

Here he was, telling the country what to do, warning of the dangers to democracy of meddling with the referendum result, his presence handed to him by birthright. There’s nothing anyone can do to get rid of him. That he just so happened to be chairman of Northern Rock during the only run on a British bank in a hundred years is also no reason his great expertise should not be heeded by a grateful nation.

There was Lord Lilley too, former trade minister under Margaret Thatcher, making the highly perspicacious point that the House of Lords should be scrutinising this legislation “over several days” not a solitary afternoon. The legislation is to avoid no deal. If the house spent several days scrutinising it, no deal would happen by default. This point was put to him, he happily agreed with it. Then he was asked to sit down.

The most recent updates say they’re scheduled to be finished at 6.30am. If they go any later than that they do so at their own risk. After the floods come the locusts. We can but hope.