An eight-hour Brexit war cabinet at Chequers agreed the negotiating policy, with Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Davis appearing to orchestrate a truce

There were several peculiarities about Thursday’s Chequers summit, billed in advance as the big Brexit punch-up after which the government would have finalised its opening negotiating stance with the European Union.

First, while 12 members of the cabinet were sequestered in Theresa May’s 16th-century Buckinghamshire manor house for eight hours, they spent less than three of them deciding that stance. The rest of their time was devoted to more wide-ranging, and altogether less contentious, discussion and debate.

Another was the fact that three of Brexit’s biggest issues — customs, migration and which areas the UK plans to diverge from after Brexit — were not dwelt on in detail even though underlying tensions remain unresolved.

Nor did the cabinet linger over what happens if Brussels rejects