The EU Withdrawal Bill has been stalled again – it's time we had a grown-up in the room to negotiate Brexit

Recently I initiated a debate about how ministers were simply ignoring inconvenient votes on opposition days, as we saw this week on Universal Credit – which has created such bad blood, even among Conservative backbenchers, that it will make it harder still for the Government

As soon as someone can find a convincing answer to the question 'If not Theresa, then who?', the May premiership will be over (Getty Images)

Political commentators are rarely unanimous on anything and, when they are, they are usually wrong.

In 2010 they were virtually unanimous that a coalition Government could not work. It might be fine for the continentals who were used to that sort of thing, and even in Scotland and Wales, but Westminster? The mother of parliaments? Impossible! It would be over by Christmas.

As each declared deadline for collapse passed, the coalition continued: 18 months in, it was difficult to find any clever people who thought it would not see out its full five years.

The same clever people will speak fondly now of the purpose and stability that the country got from a coalition government.

They contrast that with this Government, and its patent lack of authority. This has led to it ignoring Parliament. Recently I initiated a debate about how ministers were simply ignoring inconvenient votes on opposition days, as we saw this week on Universal Credit – which has created such bad blood, even among Conservative backbenchers, that it will make it harder still for the Government to get through its EU Withdrawal Bill. Which has itself been held back until further notice.

Before Parliament broke up for the party conferences, the Commons passed the second reading of the Bill. MPs thought we would be straight back from the seaside and into line by line scrutiny. Instead, this week the most contentious business the Government had to offer us was a private bill about Highgate Cemetery. Next week we are debating the rollout of smart meters. What next: a Bill to regulate the size of paper clips?

So why are MPs busy on the parliamentary equivalent of doing the crossword when the most important bill we will probably ever deal with is gathering dust?

The answer is that May remains determined to control every aspect of the Brexit process, and to pretend she still commands a Commons majority.

The truth is rather different. The Prime Minister did not just lose her majority on 8 June – she lost her authority. Many Tory MPs will tell you they feel sorry for her. But if you are Prime Minister, sympathy is no substitute for authority and respect.

So, instead of getting on with the job, the Government delays and procrastinates, hoping something will turn up. As soon as someone can find a convincing answer to the question, “If not Theresa, then who?”, the May premiership will be over.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

Some months ago, William Hague suggested in a Telegraph article that the PM should establish a cross-party commission to manage Brexit. May could do worse than to follow this advice. Hague was a wily operator. When he was Leader of the Commons, you felt there was a grown-up in the room. Andrea Leadsom, by comparison, looks like a teenager on work experience suddenly left to run the family business.

Instead of Brexit seeming like an intractable problem of Tory splits, the Hague approach would show the country that this was a Government meeting a massive challenge in the national interest.

There is no majority in the Commons for the hard Brexit to which we now seem doomed. Nor, I believe, is there any such majority in the country. There is, however, a majority for staying in the single market and the customs union. May probably knows this in her heart of hearts, but has no idea how to deliver it.

And so we risk crashing out of the EU without a deal. The only question is whether it happens by design (the Johnson/Davis/Fox agenda) or because we simply run out of road before a decision has been taken. If you end up at the bottom of cliff, the result is much the same whether you have jumped or stumbled over the edge.

Managing a coalition was never straightforward. It required goodwill and compromise. If the former was scarce, the latter would be difficult. Legislation could get gummed up in the machinery of Government. Occasionally, agreement would require a meeting of the infamous “quad” (David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Osborne and Danny Alexander).

It was imperfect, but it worked, because those at the top had not just the power but the authority – with two parties, backed by over half the electorate, led by two leaders manifestly in charge of their respective parties.

Compare that to today – and a Government that will struggle to get its EU Withdrawal Bill through Parliament before Easter, if at all. Ministers routinely ignore the will of Parliament and resort to desperate measures to get even routine measures passed. But the opposition and even some Tory backbenchers are fighting back – so everything in the Government programme from drug regulation to Brexit is threatened.

Think back to the days of coalition. Remember what it was like to have a government that was, if May will forgive me, strong and stable.

Alistair Carmichael is a Liberal Democrat MP and Chief Whip of the Liberal Democrats