TO be blunt, the past week has yet again been frustrating and farcical at Westminster. Brexit is a mammoth task that, like it or not, will have an impact on everyone.

Our relationship with our partners in the rest of Europe touches us all, from the food on our plates to the medicines that those who need them rely upon.  Even so, two years on we still don’t know what the UK Government can achieve in EU negotiations, and it’s clear that the leaders from other countries, their teams, their negotiators, their media, don’t know what Theresa May is trying to do. 

That means businesses, EU nationals, education institutions, and young people looking to the future are still in limbo. It’s become predictable to watch the Prime Minister arrive at a summit and leave again with nothing agreed and nothing achieved.

Last week’s summit was an opportunity for the Prime Minister to bring forward meaningful and genuine proposals following the disastrous meeting in Salzburg earlier this month. Instead, it was yet more fudge.

From the SNP benches at Westminster it is obvious that the Prime Minister’s attention is on the civil war raging within the Tory party – and on trying to appease the DUP – rather than on delivering anything beneficial to Scotland or the rest of the UK from Brexit negotiations. She can’t do both, it’s an impossible circle to square.

And all the while, businesses like Jaguar Land Rover are moving to a three day week, and parents are stockpiling Epipens and insulin for their children.  We’ve got a Minister for Food Security for the first time since the Second World war. The impact of Brexit is very real. It is not a political game. Yet there is a solution and one that the SNP set out two years ago.

Once again this week the First Minister was in London setting out our compromise of remaining in the single market and Customs Union. That is the least worst option and, short of staying in the EU, the one that would be least costly in terms of jobs and economic prosperity. That plan would at least provide the Scottish economy and the EU nationals living here and contributing all they do to Scotland with a starting point. 

All of us in the UK are weaker as a result of leaving the EU. The UK Government’s own analysis, reflected in that of the Scottish Government and independent think tanks, confirms the disaster that is already unfolding. 

Compare the weakness of the UK negotiating position with that of our independent neighbour Ireland, who can rely on the support and backing of 26 other member states. 

Possibly for the first time in its history Ireland sits in a stronger negotiating position to the UK and uses that influence to do all it can to help the UK avoid the worst excesses of Brexit and critically sustain the peace process in Northern Ireland. Our critical and honest friends are our best friends and right now the UK has no better friend.

Yet at Westminster there is little appetite for compromise and the sense of desperation among Labour and the Tories is palpable. Moments before crucial votes, Tory whips will frantically scrabble about looking for votes from their own back benches. There is no evidence that the PM has sought to negotiate with other parties, no evidence of her having the political insight or will to understand that the SNP have sensible solutions to offer. 

Fundamentally this has got everything to do with a Tory party which is trying to hold itself together and nothing to do with finding a salvageable solution from this almighty boorach.