There is a view that the Government’s threat of a Brexit no-deal is a bluff. This is possible, but maybe the bluff is not with the EU leaders (they are used to this from the UK by now) but instead the bluff is with the British people.

Basically the strategy is to scare the bejeebers out of everyone sensible, and to rally to the flag everyone who thinks Brexit is brilliant.

But all the time with the Government cynically knowing that a deal must be done, and that the options are very few. So, for example, while we keep the bluff playing out on TV and in the papers, how do we get ready behind the scenes to dress up a Norway-type option as a brilliant UK deal in late October?

1. Don’t ever call it the Norway option, even though it removes the need for any hard border backstop within the island of Ireland; and removes the threat of tariffs on farms. Maybe call it “UK-Plus”.

2. Use all your force to bounce people into the deal at the last moment, saying it has to be this UK-Plus or no deal.

3. Throw out a lot of smoke and noise about “side deals”, about further transitions being on the cards, about freedom to start free trade talks around the world – the beginning not the end, that sort of thing.

4. Come out hard on EU nationals living in the UK: divide them into good ones (such as much-needed nurses) and bad ones (insert racist stereotypes here). Require all EU nationals to register in the National Insurance system on arrival, deport any not paying in after three months, and agree a “side deal” with EU countries to recharge the return-journey costs. Probably not cost-effective, but it plays well in the nationalist press.

5. Get some good pictures for TV of all the MEPs packing their bags and leaving the EU Parliament.

6. And convert some of the no deal contingency funds into £350m a week for the NHS.

What should progressive people and groups do when we find themselves in a failed State? The usual response to a reactionary government would be to plan to overcome them at the first opportunity, usually being at the next general election. But for.

Parliament breakdown

The Labour party in the UK is in a strange difficulty. At the same time as being the party with the largest membership base of any in western Europe; it is also a party without sufficient MPs in the House of Commons to seize control. And election polls predict no improvement here. Labour claim the polls will be proved wrong, but this is despite the low voting numbers in the European elections a few months ago. A contributing factor here is the breakdown of tribal loyalties to the two largest parties in England, where maybe such a lifelong voting habit was a 20th century voting habit that is now fading away.

Brexit breakdown

And without rehearsing the whole argument, in short Brexit has sliced UK politics in profoundly new ways – new left-right alliances that were impossible even three years ago, and new divisions within all the main parties and within many communities.

Climate breakdown

And a climate emergency with science showing an imminent tipping point for the planet – which means the politics of ‘kicking zero carbon down the road’ to 2050 is just a dishonest gesture.

The usual solutions

One response to any crisis is to open the bottom drawer and fetch out the dusty hobby horses. The answer to our troubles is to be found in … electoral reform … one more push … higher taxation … carbon tax … assemblies … referendums … local currencies … etc. But in our bones we know that these will not cut it, and certainly not if they are done alone. The scale of the problem is such that things like these that used to be our strategies have been reduced to just being tactics.

Old influencers are under attack

The old trusted organisations that influenced the thinking and behaviours of people in communities and across the country are fading away. The trusted news sources, the discredited authority of some church and faith organisations, and our shared experience of a mass media – all are in decline. Partly with through the use of a tech revolution these large, sometimes stodgy, old influencers are being sliced and diced by the unchecked power of wealth and its unlimited greed.

New channels of resistance

Perhaps the power we are looking for is to be found in the places where we share our lives. Towns and cities can be small enough to build relationships and large enough to make a difference when they move to collective action. If so, it means disengaging from national government except to resist it. It cannot be a network if that is only to be a cover to provide window-dressing for what remains a national organisation, it has to be a new way of working that is non-national and anti-nationalist.

For the longer term, the task will be how to re-make national government in a way which better resists the forces of greed and nationalism.