Government finally shows a path through the chaos. Several in fact.

Yesterday, government finally provided some much-needed clarity on exactly what their plans are and will be in coming weeks to break through the parliamentary deadlock, turn chaos into order and finally deliver the Holy Gail of Brexit, Do or Die.

In various reports from several journalists yesterday, sources close to government and others have suggested that Prime Minister Johnson: -

•  Was considering bringing back a version of the Northern Ireland-only backstop.

• Has had meetings with the DUP in which he rejected any notion of a Northern Ireland-only backstop.

• Is trying to entice back into the party those Tory rebel MPs expelled under instruction from his SpAd for voting against him last week.

• Is appealing to One-Nation Tories to help him counter the “spears in my back” expected from the ERG & DUP when he brings a plan to parliament (those not so disillusioned with Johnson they’re quitting politics altogether, one assumes).

• Has begun “scoping” conversations over an electoral pact with the Brexit Party Ltd whose price is to scrap any Withdrawal Agreement and hand them a free run at 80-90 seats.

• Has told Cabinet that even without a deal he will not negotiate a delay with Brussels, as required by law, and intended to “sabotage” the extension using a cunning plan which wasn’t going to divulged but we’d all find out soon enough. 

These are all reports from journalists made in the past 24 hours.

Added to this, Andrea Leadsom stuck another one on the pile this morning by saying that despite a Humble Address binding on government they don’t intend to publish the Operation Yellow Hammer documents as they might “serve to concern people”. Trust us Andrea, we are already concerned.

Taking just the first "plan", there are problems associated with a reintroduction of a Northern-Ireland only backstop into a Withdrawal Agreement. These are not merely limited to it being seen as something of a turnaround for a Prime Minister who has repeatedly said “The anti-democratic Backstop is dead”. Or that it would need a majority in parliament, that the Brexit Party Ltd. would then stand against him everywhere in the imminent General Election, or even that it could cause the self-proclaimed “Minister for the Union” to precipitate the breakup of said Union. The main issue is time.

Parliament would have to approve the new Backstop plan before it could be brought to the EU council at the summit on the 17th and 18th of October. The Benn Bill states than if no agreement is in place by the 19th of October an extension must by law be requested by the Prime Minister. The 19th of October is a Saturday. So as the Prime Minister has prorogued parliament until the 14th with a Queen’s speech to be presented debated and voted on that week, there simply isn’t time to get it done before the PM has to request an extension or break the law (the cunning plots of Machiavellian genius Cummings notwithstanding). 

Remember, this lack of time is precisely because of the actions of the government stifling parliamentary scrutiny by proroguing parliament*. Classic Dom.

Each of these reported proposals falls apart under scrutiny in a similar way. But looking at this smorgasbord of potential paths clearly reveals the bigger problem - it is simply impossible to reconcile more than one or two of these plans in the same universe. It’s like trying to make a new jigsaw using pieces from a few different old ones. You may be able to get a couple of the pieces to fit together but then the others won’t go in, and you will never make a picture of anything sensible.

This chaos is part of the plan. For anyone who has followed US politics for a while this is not a new phenomenon, but a well-worn tactic employed by Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon, a method known as “flood the forum with shit”.

This has two advantages for government, though sadly fewer for the rest of us. Firstly it covers all possible bases so nobody can tell what the plan actually is, and when something does eventually crystallise Government can suggest that was the real plan all along and we shouldn’t have been such fools as to believe the others.

Secondly and more importantly, it is a clever way of spreading propaganda. As chess Grandmaster and Russian anti-Putin activist Garry Kasparov says, “The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” It is truly exhausting trying to work out the likelihood of any course of action, the likelihood of success and the eventual consequences. And even if we could, it wouldn’t matter because today there’ll be a raft of new, conflicting ideas and plans.

It’s no wonder a sizeable number of people in the UK want us to Just Get On With it, or conversely Just Make It Stop.

* Update : Literally as I was finishing this, the Courts in Scotland found that Boris Johnson misled the Queen on his reasons for proroguing parliament, which may lead to parliament re-sitting and/or the Prime Minister resigning for lying to the Queen. Maybe this is a little more chaos than even Mr Cummings was expecting.

Well done Joanna Cherry, Jolyon Maugham and The Good Law Project for their sterling work.