The day after I first posted here the whole situation went from bad to worse. The government decided to change tack, and asked Whitehall (the public service) to start ramping up their preparations for a no-deal Brexit. To be sure, they've already been preparing for this eventuality, so whilst this does have some practical effect, it's effectively a political statement by the government that no-deal is more likely. A lot of the changes that Whitehall have made have basically been to change the public information available on their websites, which now discuss some of the things that might happen if there is no deal. The government has also been careful to contribute to this discussion with some subtlety.
This has still occurred in a ridiculous political context. In the UK, their parliament affords a lot more freedom for backbenchers to express personal views, meaning that even if you are the member of a political party, you can still be highly critical of the government. This is what makes the kind of criticism that Theresa May has received from the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Anna Soubry, as examples, perfectly reasonable of a party member in the British political system. What is similar to Australia though is that members of the executive (i.e. ministers) are expected to tow the line of the government. If they cannot agree with government policy, they are compelled to resign from the government and sit on the backbench. This is what has prompted a lot of the resignations we've seen over the years, mainly from Brexiters but also others like Jo Johnson. The name for this principle of support is collective responsibility.
Collective responsibility has basically broken down over the last couple of weeks, with cabinet ministers publicly pursuing alternatives to the PM's plans. This obviously happens in private all of the time, and sometimes gets leaked; however, doing so publicly is a violation of collective responsibility, the fact of which points towards the level of dysfunction within the British government at the moment. As examples, Andrea Leadsom (who is responsible for dealing with the House of Commons, and therefore really expected to be a strong supporter of Theresa May) has been pushing for a renegotiation of the deal TM has secured, Jeremy Hunt, who is Foreign Secretary, has been talking up a "managed no-deal" to position himself for the leadership when TM falls and Amber Rudd, whilst ostensibly supporting TM strongly on the deal she has secured, has been pushing for a second referendum (to be clear, she hasn't publicly advocated for it, but has made contributions to the debate that have basically done so).
It's a shambles atm folks!