In a shared nightmare no-one can wake up from, the idea of some centrist peace and quiet is appealing. That’s why The Independent Group is polling in third place just 5 days after it launched.

For those fundamentalists who insist dreamland is the best place to stay, it’s also appealing to blame the TIGgers for an impending lack of unicorns. But TIG is not the answer to our problems.

Oh, it’s great for providing an escape route to all those who like to complain but have no idea what to do. If you’re a Corbynista, Brexit headbanger or raging anti-Semite, the appearance of traitors proves all your conspiracy theories true: it was definitely THEIR fault.

And for the average voter – the one who’s seen a referendum turn to dust while sleep-deprived toddlers bitchslap each other around Westminster like a kindergarten whose teacher has just stepped outside for three years – it looks a lot like the grown-ups have arrived, offering a coherent, mature, alternative to extremist chaos.

It’s indisputable TIG’s appearance was an attention-grabbing thwack of the Parliamentary blackboard. Unfortunately, its 11 members have not got a Scooby Doo what to do next.

They have told the class to shut up and listen. But they don’t know what to say.

If you look at the voting records of its members, TIG agrees wholeheartedly with itself that Britain needed austerity as well as spending. It wants to tax the rich more and less, and wants gays to have both more and fewer rights. It wants more private healthcare and to protect the NHS, to lower and raise welfare benefits, and it simultaneously supports and rejects university tuition fees, mass surveillance, and immigration controls. It’s only centrist if you add all that up and divide it by the Lib Dems.

There are just two topics its members seem to agree on – Remaining, and the smoking ban. That’s not enough common ground to stand on for more than 5 minutes, never mind a 5-year Parliamentary term. If their unity couldn’t survive a conversation in the pub, what can they achieve?

Last month a string of crunch votes on Brexit produced majorities of between just 8 and 32 votes. The Brady Amendment which threw Theresa May a lifeline passed with just 16, putting our 11 TIGgers in a strong position to sway Brexit. If they combine with the 12 Lib Dems and 59 Scots nationalists – never mind potentially hundreds of dissenters in the main parties – they might command a majority to bring down Brexit, the government, or both.

So it’s a damned shame they’ve said they won’t.

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The Independent Group

Well, *they* haven’t – one of the TIGgers, Gavin Shuker, has said he would prop up the government in return for a soft Brexit and second referendum. And there’s the problem writ large: they’re independent of each other, as well.

They have chosen not to pay the £150 Electoral Commission fee to register a new party. They’ve instead rented a room above a ‘Spoons and paid £40 to register at Companies House as a limited company, which doesn’t exactly look like they’re aiming for Downing Street.

Chuka Umunna, who is closest to being the leader the TIGgers don’t have, says British politics is broken and urged those from other parties to join them. But when put on the spot he’s been unable to name a single current Labour policy he disagrees with, or clearly explain what, exactly, TIG wants.

The defection press conferences were aimed not at the electorate but their parties – the equivalent of hurling abuse over your shoulder before slamming the door on your way out. None of it, so far, has included an idea about a better or different party.

That hasn’t stopped anyone referring to the non-party as a party. It hasn’t stopped 14% of the electorate deciding to vote for the non-electable non-party with no policies. Not knowing quite what they stand for hasn’t stopped their enemies decrying what they stand for. And the fact they can’t agree on how to deal with 99% of our problems hasn’t stopped any of us hoping they can, nevertheless, fix them.

They are the first MPs to recognise and reflect the fact that most British people want Labour’s economic policies – tax the rich, spend on services, regulate the banks – AND a Tory brake on social change – immigration controls, crime crackdowns, and let Shamima Begum rot . The will of the people is clear, and utterly incomprehensible.

So you can hardly blame TIG for incoherent babbling, because the rest of us are frankly no better. Chuka calls them a movement, but it doesn’t move us any further on and has yet to find the messiah it needs to drive any meaningful change.

Instead, the TIGgers have each picked an enemy of reason – Brexit, anti-Semitism, entryism, tribal politics, Jacob Rees-Mogg – and vowed to smash it.

Any tiger with a spring in its tail would get publicity and public support but 11 of them, winding up the racists and safe-spacers alike, can expect exactly the degree of hero-worship they’re getting.

That’s why they’re not a party. And it’s why they don’t want by-elections. Their aim is not to be a government-in-waiting, but to break the extremist grip which is choking the life out of both main parties. It is worth noting that 11 by-elections would force these MPs to absent themselves from Parliament at just the point that they could wreak the most havoc on Brexit; and those shouting loudest for by-elections are very Brexity.

But when May and Corbyn’s puppeteers have their strings cut, Brexit is delayed or trashed and we’re looking for new leaders in the wasteland on the other side of March 29, what is right, and what will be left?

TIG is not the answer. It is posing a question those on all sides know must be asked – where do we go next?

The TIGgers do not know. They just like to bounce – bounce the voters out of despair, the main parties out of entrail-gnawing complacency. They have no plan for what to do next, because one TIGger couldn’t agree with himself, never mind 10 more.

They are not your great, centrist, hope. They are 11 wrecking balls, hoping to clear the decks for something else. That something has yet to manifest, and the thing that will decide whether it is populist or popular will depend largely what sort of messiah we get. The first of those two options that gets a charismatic and inspiring leader will be the one to turn our heads.

Remember: TIGgers don’t roar. Enjoy the bouncing, and let’s just hope that when the king of the jungle turns up, it’s Mufasa and not Scar.

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