My Fantasy Cabinet to steer Britain through this mess

Step forward Jeremy Corbyn. The low-profile Labour leader has written to MPs in the other parties, as well as Tory Remainers, reminding them that he is Leader of the Opposition and proposing himself as Prime Minister of a short-lived caretaker government following a no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson.

There are a couple of problems with this plan. First, it’s hard to imagine Conservative MPs being prepared to play kingmaker for Jeremy Corbyn, even temporarily, and without enough Tories the plan fails. Secondly, while insisting that “our priority should be to work together in Parliament”, it seems he did not reach out to Change UK MPs or Labour defectors, even though their support will be crucial.

Still, it’s a start. The SNP, Greens, Plaid Cymru and even some Tories have said they are prepared to talk, though none have committed to the plan. Jo Swinson, the new LibDem leader, has dismissed the idea as “nonsense”, but we have to trust she is signalling to Mr Corbyn the need to give way to a less divisive figure, and is not just squeamish about working with him (if by some miracle enough rebel Tories actually supported him, the LibDems would be mad to block him).

So a “rainbow coalition” could materialise after all. Its job would be to avert no-deal, delay Brexit, and facilitate either a referendum (let’s hope) or a General Election, depending on what commanded MPs’ support.

What a heartening thought. Let’s just forget for a moment Mr Cummings’s threat that Mr Johnson would refuse to go if he lost the confidence of Parliament, like a troublesome child at the play park hogging the best swing. Let’s assume that he would make way for a new government of national unity, if one could secure enough support. What would that government look like? Who would you field in your Fantasy Cabinet?

There’s actually quite a bit of choice. Brexit may have unleashed the worst in British politics, but it has also brought out the best. Crises tend to do that. And so alongside the zealots who want to turn the UK into a low wage, deregulated economy at any cost, are free-thinking men and women from all parties who have stepped forward to try and stop the no-deal madness, sometimes at considerable personal cost.

The caretaker Prime Minister should be a Labour backbencher. Why Labour and not a Tory like Ken Clarke? Because the parliamentary Labour party will deliver most of the votes to support the new government. I’d like to pick Yvette Cooper, architect of the anti no-deal efforts in Parliament, a sensible, courageous, experienced politician, but her predicament as MP for a pro-Brexit constituency could make her a lightning rod for the Cummings campaign to discredit the new government, so I’d pick Hillary Benn instead, with Cooper elsewhere in cabinet. Both MPs have the ability to do two things that Theresa May could not: work across party lines and come up with innovative solutions.

We don’t know whether Mr Corbyn would give way to Mr Benn, but if he did not, and blocked a government of national unity, he’d have to share the blame for a no-deal Brexit. So let’s assume he sees sense.

Labour front-benchers like Emily Thornberry, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner will be the glue of the coalition. Personally, I’d appoint Corbyn critic Jess Phillips too (just because I like her).

Most cabinets represent shades of opinion only within the winning party, but this one should be different, since it needs to maximise its appeal. Hard-line Brexiters would clearly have no place in it, but Brexit-sympathetic MPs would, provided they were prepared to align with the government’s aims (which may include that second referendum). The seats each party gets should take into consideration their vote share in 2017. Let’s appoint the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford, and Joanna Cherry, who fronted efforts to revoke article 50, or perhaps Stephen Gethins. The LibDems would get Jo Swinson and Ed Davey. As this is my fantasy cabinet, I’d save places for one of the new LibDem MPs who left other parties in opposition to Brexit, Chuka Umunna or Sarah Wollaston, as well as Change UK leader Anna Soubry, and deselected Tory Nick Boles. But in the real world, the Labour defectors might be sacrificed as the price of Labour cooperation.

Add in the Green Party’s single MP Caroline Lucas and Liz Saville Roberts of Plaid Cymru, and the table’s getting crowded.

But what about the Tories? For this to work, there is no scope whatsoever for huffy refusals to work with the Tories. Making room for cuddly Ken Clarke won’t be enough. If Dominic Grieve, Dame Caroline Spelman, Philip Hammond, Oliver Letwin and others have delivered the numbers in parliament, some of them must be included. Chameleon-like former Remainers like Amber Rudd and Nicky Morgan could help broaden the cabinet’s appeal.

And I have one more surprise appointment, someone with a proven capacity to shift position tactically when he sees which way the wind is blowing. Lord knows how the Tories would react, but I’d invite John McDonnell on board, to cement Labour’s commitment. Mr McDonnell and Mr Hammond round the same Cabinet table? No more far- fetched than the rest of the Brexit story.

So that’s one version of a national unity government. We should not underestimate the ideological barriers that would have to be overcome, or the bravery these MPs would require faced with a nasty campaign from the hard right. But where there are villains, there are heroes; this could be their moment.