The fuse has been lit for two years. But when's the detonation?

The best way of thinking about Brexit is to picture a minefield or maybe a darkened labyrinth with a number of carefully-laid tripwires. Any false move along the way and there’s a danger of a detonation. So Theresa May can’t run freely, as she once did through the wheat fields of her youth. She tiptoes cautiously and brings along her bomb disposal experts.

So far, no explosion. But the mines and tripwires stretch off into the distance. And there’s a deadly surprise lying in store.

Even if you manage to make it to the end of the maze, a blast is set to go off on a timer anyway.

The more I look at the politics of Brexit, the more I see circles that just cannot be squared. Just decisions and crunch points that get endlessly deferred. Until eventually there’s no more road left.

If you’re the DUP, you believe in Brexit, but you don’t want a hard border. At the same time, you don’t want regulatory alignment with the EU and a border in the middle of the Irish Sea.

Tripwire.

If you’re Theresa May, you know the DUP position sends you spiralling in an endless unresolvable loop. But you need the votes of the DUP to sustain your government.

Another tripwire.

You pray that the unionist MPs won’t want to go back to their constituents and explain how they facilitated the arrival of Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.

Meanwhile, you just appointed Sajid Javid in the wake of the Windrush scandal and he sits in the inner cabinet discussing Brexit. He doesn’t take the same middle-ground position of Amber Rudd. But you’re stuck with him.

Moderate Tories, such as Nicky Morgan and Anna Soubry want a softer Brexit. They can side with Labour to defeat the government. But a vociferous group of pro-Brexit hardliners threatens to topple you as Tory leader if you side with the moderates.

Boom.

But what if you’re Jeremy Corbyn on the other side of the Commons? You’re happy to embrace a customs union of some sort, but can’t bring yourself to back the single market. Labour MPs and members are much more instinctively pro-EU than you and John McDonnell.  Most Labour voters are too. But not all.

Tripwire.

If you back the single market, you win the support of the PLP and rescue your reputation in liberal urban strongholds. But you potentially lose votes in the Midlands and North in areas that were strongly pro-Leave. 

You can stick to your guns and say that leaving the EU means leaving the single market too (a position so wrong it hurts), but you lose your credibility among your pro-European fanbase and risk further confrontation with your backbench MPs.

Boom.

I’ve observed British politics at first hand for about 35 years and have a passable knowledge of modern political history. There is, I would argue, no issue we’ve confronted as a nation in the post-war era that is so unresolvable. Consequently, there is no issue that is more explosive.

I conduct idle thought experiments as to what might happen.

Let’s imagine a few scenarios.

The right-wing Tories aren’t bluffing and they move against May, creating a civil war in the Conservative Party.

The geriatric Tory membership is pro-Brexit and their candidate might well emerge victorious. Think of how Andrea Leadsom might have done if she’d been allowed to stand in 2016.

But is a Brexiter PM any more likely to win critical votes in the House of Commons or House of Lords? The arithmetic would remain exactly the same.

May loses a vote of confidence in Parliament.

The Tories find themselves fighting a general election and it’s hard to imagine May wanting to stay on as leader. The outcome would be very unpredictable. If the Tories were badly split, Labour could come through. But Labour’s own position on Brexit is as clear as mud. And what if the election produced a hung parliament very similar to the one we already have?

The government – in desperation – gambles on a second referendum.

At the moment, this seems highly unlikely, as it is completely ruled out by the governing party and largely pooh-poohed by Labour. But what if, in a few months’ time, it’s the only way out of an impasse short of calling another general election? May – with warring factions clashing around her - goes to the country and says: ‘Look, this is the Brexit deal I’ve managed to get. It’s not perfect, but I want you to endorse it.’

Is that really so far-fetched?

Brexiters would see this as treachery. Remoaners would want the option of voting to stay in the EU. But the actual vote might be ‘take it or leave it’, with the latter choice meaning we walk away with nothing apart from our bus fare home.

We would have six weeks of acrimonious hell. 

The last referendum campaign saw the death of a Labour MP at the hands of a right-wing extremist. Who could confidently predict the next would pass off peacefully?

And what if a second referendum produced a close vote? That’s a scenario that just doesn’t bear thinking about.

So we tiptoe slowly through the minefield, hoping to reach the other side. But if only we’d heeded the signs that warned us never to set foot there in the first place.