The UK Government narrative around the state of the Brexit negotiations, particularly on trade, is a complete fantasy.

The Prime Minister said in her statement to the Commons after the Chequers meeting that “the negotiations so far have settled virtually all of the withdrawal agreement”. All that remains is to agree how we trade with the EU in the future and, of course, deal with the vexed question of the Irish border.

That, though, is at the heart of the problem, driven by a bloody-minded approach to leave the single market and the customs union.

And to date the various options put forward by the UK have been unworkable or unacceptable to the EU.

So what is the UK Government’s proposed solution now?

Well, on trade, Theresa May couldn’t be any more vague if she tried. The Prime Minister said she wanted a “comprehensive free trade and customs agreement” – well don’t we all – and she has proposed what she calls a “facilitated customs arrangement” to try to avoid customs checks at the border.

The problem is that this is almost identical to the “maximum facilitation” plan already put forward by the hard Brexiteers and rejected by businesses and the EU.

That, remember, was slammed by the EEF who said the UK Government should abandon it and that it was “naïve” and “wholly unrealistic” to expect it could be delivered before the end of 2020.

It also strikes me as unlikely that the EU will change their view, that customs facilitation and technology on their own will not remove the need for “inevitable” border checks.

The Prime Minister’s fantasy continued when she said in her post-Chequers statement to MPs that “we have agreed an implementation period that will provide businesses and Governments with the time to prepare for our future relationship with the EU”.

The implementation period starts in March 2019 and ends less than two years later at the end of 2020.

Had the UK Government, particularly the ex-Brexit Secretary, David Davis, not wasted the last two years posturing instead of negotiating, this might have been true. But it isn’t.

With only a few short months to go, there is still no agreement in the Cabinet about how to proceed; splits and divisions have turned into resignations and all-out Tory civil war and the “new” trade proposals are little different to those unworkable ones already rejected.

The truth is that the best way to facilitate trade and avoid complicated and expensive border arrangements is for the UK to stay in the single market and the customs union.

But we do not have a UK Government who deals in common sense.

Rather we have a Prime Minster shorn of all authority, delivering soundbites instead of detail and flailing around as if she’s been cast adrift on some fantasy island.

The jobs of millions of workers depend on continued frictionless trade with the EU. This week has demonstrated that the UK Government doesn’t even know where to start addressing that issue.