Tick bloody tock. Britain has entered the last 100 days before the nation is set to abandon the European Union. But in the House of Commons today, MPs spent the afternoon accusing each other of endless dithering.
They're right. If Brexit feels interminable, it is because it is.
After yanking a vote on her Brexit deal last week, Prime Minister Theresa May said Parliament won't get a chance to vote until after the Christmas holidays, during the third week of January. An exact date has not been set.
Jeremy Corbyn, the Opposition Labour Party leader, got to his feet to charge May with "recklessly running down the clock" in order to rob the country of any real alternative to her unloved Brexit deal. "The reality is the prime minister is stalling for time," Corbyn said.
Alongside her well-known traits of grit, stubbornness and secrecy, May's future biographers may add brinksmanship.
Whether by cunning or incompetence, she is taking Brexit to the wire - which her admirers and critics say might have been her plan all along.
According to European leaders, everything should have been settled by now. But nothing is settled at all. And unless there is another delay - a possibility - Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29.
After spending two years in Brussels talking, a final withdrawal agreement was promised by October, then November, then December. Now January.
And the Prime Minister is offering British MPs, especially those in her own Conservative Party, the starkest of choices: Her deal or no deal.
Over the holidays, May wants her fellow Tories to have a good, long think about the cost of leaving the European Union with no deal, a scary scenario that envisions economic chaos and cancelled European holidays.
May's Cabinet yesterday activated a multi-billion-dollar emergency plan to prepare for no deal, including sending letters to 140,000 British firms updating them on what they should do now, beyond pray.
What would you sacrifice to avoid the embarrassment of admitting you’ve made a massive mistake?
— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) December 19, 2018
Brexit is now being driven by people who would sacrifice the economic health of our country, the freedoms of our families & the security of our population.
Instead of saying sorry.
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson also announced the British army will place 3500 troops, including infantry units, on standby, "in order to support any government department on any contingencies they may need."
What might British soldiers do in a Brexit emergency? Free up police busy putting down civil unrest; patrol the English Channel to stop goods smugglers and human traffickers; airlift vital medical supplies; and use their cargo ships to ferry food and fuel.
Is this prudent planning - or something else? Sir Vince Cable, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party and an arch-opponent to Brexit, described the announcements and their timing as "psychological warfare".
The Labour leader agreed. "There is still no majority for her shoddy deal in this house. It isn't stoical, it's cynical," Corbyn said. He accused May of ramping up contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit as a way to drive through her deal.
"Stop dithering and put it to a vote!" he bellowed.
With 100 days until Brexit it’s good to see the House of Commons plotting a path to a safe, secure & prosperous future in a cool, calm & considered way. Oh wait ...
— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) December 19, 2018
Not to be outdone, May accused Corbyn of not having no realistic Brexit plan and of stalling himself.
"It's a bit rich him standing here talking about dithering," May responded. "Let's see what the Labour Party did this week. They said they would call a vote of no confidence, then they said they wouldn't, then he said he would, then it wasn't effective."
When May was finished, Corbyn appeared to mouth the words "stupid woman". His party later claimed that he had said "stupid people".
Many British hosts of Christmas parties have tried to ban guests from arguing about Brexit - but it is hopeless.
At his annual gathering for diplomats and journalists, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt pointed out that there were bigger problems in the world than Brexit. He mentioned Yemen.
This is surely the story of today: the EU Commission's decision to take steps that would only minimally reduce the economic and lifestyle shocks of a no-deal Brexit. Has something happened that has prevented it leading the news? And who is to blame if so? https://t.co/KZUicahskk
— Robert Peston (@Peston) December 19, 2018
At the Christmas fete at the Irish Embassy in London, a journalist with the Daily Mail had to be escorted from the room after shouting "Brexit!" during the ambassador's speech. This made the newspapers.
Upon news of further delay, Carolyn Fairbairn, the director-general of Confederation of British Industry, which represents 190,000 businesses, warned her members were absolutely desperate for clarity.
"Investment plans have been paused for two and a half years," she said. "Unless a deal is agreed quickly, the country risks sliding towards a national crisis."
In the Commons debate over Brexit on Tuesday, Justine Greening, a Conservative pro-European former Cabinet minister, said: "We have spent two and a half years going round in circles and we cannot simply go nowhere, we have to now take some decisions about going somewhere."
Greening said, "People simply won't understand why this place is packing up and having a two week holiday when we face the biggest constitutional crisis that this country has had in decades. It is simply wrong. The Government has to recognise this."
Would a no-deal Brexit really be “Armageddon?”
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 19, 2018
We speak to businesses likely to be most affected by leaving the EU without a deal - and ask the government about its plans. pic.twitter.com/eCjqi8H6kP
May said she will be busy over the holidays seeking "assurances" from the European leaders on her Brexit deal. Well, yes, maybe. The Europeans have said no meetings are scheduled.
Diplomats in Brussels familiar with the negotiations said that May's decision to scrap the December date for her parliamentary vote, just days before a summit of EU leaders, was a serious miscalculation if her aim was to extract concessions - or even symbolic reassurances - from Europe.
Leaders of Germany, France and the Netherlands have made clear there won't be any substantial changes to the agreement on the table.
By delaying, the thinking goes, Downing Street and the parliamentary whips will have a little more time to cajole, frighten and squeeze MPs who don't like May's deal. They hope that once members are away from the fractious, poisonous, febrile atmosphere of Westminster, in the bosom of family and friends and frustrated constituents, that upon reflection and a couple of stiff drinks over the holidays, they might see May's Brexit in a more favourable light.
Yet it is May's fellow Tories who appear as frustrated as anyone with the endless delays. Anna Soubry, a Conservative MP, accused bluntly May of "blackmail".
The governments immigration proposal is 'an act of vandalism on the Scottish economy' - First minister @NicolaSturgeon blasts the Theresa May's immigration plan post-Brexit.
— Sky News Politics (@SkyNewsPolitics) December 19, 2018
Get more on Brexit here: https://t.co/Ji75F6wQmY pic.twitter.com/bsURxWYmsE
Sam Gyimah, a Tory MP who resigned from May's Cabinet over Brexit, charged that Downing Street had stopped trying to sell May's deal as a winner, and are instead trying to "discredit every plausible alternative as they run down the clock. This is not in the national interest".
It's hard to see how May will get her deal through Parliament. And yet. It's still the only deal that Brussels has agreed to, and the only one just a parliamentary vote away from getting a green light.
All other possible alternatives - and there are many being floated, including a second Brexit referendum - face even higher hurdles along with the ticking clock.
Over the coming weeks, May's deal "will be, I'm sure, like a piñata," said Rob Ford, a politics professor at the University of Manchester. "It will be repeatedly beaten with sticks from all sides and called dead, over and over again, by all sorts of people who want to call it dead, but that doesn't make it dead."
Why? Because it averts no deal, Ford said.
'Economic experts agree a no-deal Brexit is best avoided' - Sky's business correspondent, @AdamParsons1 looks at what would life in a 'no-deal' Brexit UK look like?
— SkyNews (@SkyNews) December 19, 2018
Get more on a 'no-deal' Brexit here: https://t.co/QG2mqpUzPB pic.twitter.com/pWKUHEkbiu
Running down the clock was the obvious strategy given the many factions and conflicting demands in Parliament.
"But I don't think anyone looking at this is kidded into thinking that there was a strategic genius behind this all along, even if it passes," said Anand Menon, a professor of European Politics at King's College London.
Menon said May was struggling to sell her deal now in part because she is not a great communicator, and she never sufficiently prepared MPs or the country for the costly trade-offs of any deal with the EU.
"So now, all of a sudden, people go, 'hang on, you promised us frictionless trade' and she's 'oh yeah, that was impossible,' and people say, 'you said no deal was better than a bad deal,' and she's 'oh yeah, I was kidding.' So it's only now that the those trade offs are being spelled in out in a coherent way and even now she's not doing it particularly clearly."
Iran has vowed to respond, claiming its enriched uranium wasn’t destroyed.