I wish York was in New Zealand. The way it has dealt with the Christchurch shooting has been pragmatic, full of common sense and anti-extremist.

First, comfort the bereaved. So the prime minister dons Muslim dress to talk to the grieving families, and police and the coroner take care that their necessary procedures are carried out as far as possible in accordance with Muslim custom.

Second, get rid of the weapons with new gun laws, and then once emotions have calmed down talk about cracking down on racism.

New Zealand has been noticeably free of right-wing anti-immigration rhetoric, even though the main suspect is a foreigner. It and its premier are to be applauded for their approach to disaster.

Pragmatic, common sense and avoiding extremism used to be the way the world described British politics. Not now. Ask any senior politician across Europe about the UK and they will roll their eyes in despair. Divided, extremist, living in a fantasy world, those are words they use now to describe British politics.

We like to talk about the Mother of Parliaments and how we gave democracy to the world. Today, the rest of the world probably considers that the Mother of Parliaments has grown senile in her own age and it's time she retired to a nursing home and gave way to someone younger and more capable.

Significantly, both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments deliberately avoided modelling themselves on the Westminster Parliament when they set themselves up at the end of the last century.

In the last three months alone, we have seen a prime minister pull a crucial vote while MPs were halfway through five days of debating it and in a separate vote on the same issue, tell her MPs they have a free vote then, as they head towards the voting lobbies tell them it's a three-line whip and they must do as she says. When in the biggest vote of her premiership, she is defeated by a historic 210 votes, she tells Parliament "wrong answer, try, try again". That's not democracy, that's dictatorship.

Then there's the MP who vetoes every attempt by other MPs to introduce sensible private members' bills such as banning upskirting, but likes to fill the order paper with his own and his friends' eccentric bills, and the Leader of the Opposition who flounced out of a crisis meeting of party leaders earlier this week because it included someone he didn't like.

The Commons, the day after the Government suffered the biggest ever defeat on the biggest issue of the year, still managed to say it had confidence in the Government.

The nadir of Westminster democracy was last week when a senior member of the Government, the Brexit Secretary, closed a crucial Brexit debate by urging members to vote for the Government's motion, then headed straight from the Despatch Box to the No Lobby to do exactly the opposite. In normal times – and in any normal Parliament – he would have had to write his letter of resignation en route. But he is still in post, still making statements and speeches in major debates. How can anyone believe anything that is said by any Government minister now after that spectacular contradiction?

Politicians used to say "The People have spoken" when they won an election. By it they mean the people who voted for them. But in every election, every democratic process, all voters speak, including the ones that say the exact opposite to you. Elections and referendums are not sporting contests giving medals to be worn until the next one. Wise politicians listen to all the people. That is how it used to work, with ministers and politicians careful to take heed of concerns raised by those who voted against them, in the hope of winning their votes next time round. That's the pragmatic, common sense, approach. It's not how it works now. Now Westminster politicians have descended into tribal warfare, unable to hear anything said by their colleagues in other parties or different ideological groups and totally oblivious to the problems they are creating for everyone else.

Welcome to the Brexit cliff edge with a jostling, mass of politicians pushing us ever nearer to the drop. Those who go over will be smashed to pieces on the rocks below.

I wish York was in New Zealand.