BIG Ben may have been temporarily silenced over the summer, but it is a different ticking clock that is the focus of MPs’ attention as we return to parliament this week.

Ever since the government triggered Article 50 in May, the Brexit countdown has been under way on the two-year negotiation period before we formally leave the EU.

Everyone agrees that crashing out with no agreement would be a disaster for Britain. We would have to impose new customs checks and security measures overnight. We would lose our security cooperation, our trade links and there would be huge legal issues with aircraft, nuclear materials and medicines. Britain’s economy would suffer one of the most serious shocks we have seen in modern times.

Given this disaster scenario the urgency of getting a good deal done quickly is obvious, so it is extremely worrying that, with nearly a quarter of the time gone, there has been absolutely no progress whatsoever in the Brexit talks. In fact David Davis, the Brexit secretary, seems to have spent the entire summer having an argument with the EU about the precise order of the different talks.

In June he called it ‘the battle of the summer’, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that he has lost the battle and in the process spent precious months of negotiating time and exhausted the patience and goodwill of the other side.

In the military it is often said that even the best laid plans do not survive the first contact with the enemy. When it comes to the Tories and Brexit, even the meagre plans they have developed have not survived contact with reality.

The Tories say they want Britain to be outside the single market and the customs union, but somehow keep all the benefits of being inside. They complain about no progress, but they also refuse to compromise and even more amazingly refuse to set out what they even want the future relationship with the EU to look like.

David Davis may think that insulting the EU negotiators in public makes him look tough, but the public will not accept hot air as a substitute for concrete progress.

We are only going to get one shot at these negotiations and it is vital that we get it right. That is why Labour has said that we should remain in the single market and the customs union during the transition period after 2019. This would mean that there would be no sudden overnight change in 2019; it would provide certainty for businesses and families, and crucially it would buy us a couple more years to negotiate a deal with the EU that works for Britain. It is a sensible approach and I hope those Tory MPs who share my despair at the mess they are making of Brexit will help to steer the government onto a more realistic Brexit approach.

They also need to help talk some sense into the government on the issue of the EU Withdrawal Bill that is currently being debated in parliament. We all recognise that we need a bill to transfer EU law into UK law and avoid unnecessary uncertainty, but I do not see how anyone who says they believe in democracy can vote for the bill the government has drafted. Theresa May is asking parliament to hand her the power to change any law she wants and completely bypass parliament using so-called ‘Henry VIII powers’.

It was just a few months ago that the people of Britain showed their lack of confidence in Theresa May by stripping her of her majority; if she was now handed these extraordinary sweeping powers then it would make a mockery of that election, of the promises made during the referendum and of our democracy.