To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes: when you exclude the impossible, what remains, however improbable, is the answer.

The only way out of the Brexit impasse is a further referendum. At some point Parliament should recognise this, and if the tactics of how it is voted upon aren’t bungled, should agree it. But the sooner the better.

The Theresa May deal should not pass Parliament. It is a bad deal, a million miles away from what people were promised from Brexit; and a deal which Members of Parliament would never in a thousand years vote for if they were voting purely on its merits.

We are going to spend billions of pounds, hire legions of civil servants, have more years of distraction whilst the challenges of the country go unaddressed, to produce a deal which in the name of “taking back control” forfeits the control we have. And there are myriad complexities still to be confronted in everything from fishing to mobile telephony.

Meanwhile, a nation which was a byword for common sense and clarity of thinking has been relegated in the international arena to an object of bemused pity.

But if May’s Brexit deal should not pass; neither would the alternatives.

A significant block of MPs advocate the EEA solution, where we become like Norway. They’re right this minimises the economic damage (though it doesn’t fully resolve the Irish issue either). However, this suffers from the same fundamental design flaw as the May deal.

This is the big picture the political class has got to step back and see vividly.

Understandably, Theresa May sought to deliver the Brexit mandate in a way that was true to Brexit but acknowledged the Remain vote and did the least economic damage. But her strategy was never going to work for this reason.

For 45 years, Britain has been a member of the EU, and in that time a set of deep trading and investment relationships with Europe has come into being, and in recent years has spawned supply chains, financial services, interlocking commercial arrangements all of which depend on Britain being part of the single market and customs union of Europe.

The single market is a unique trading system with the objective of having one set of rules across national boundaries. Britain was the champion of the single market, urging this greater integration through successive governments.

However, the principal Leave case is that these rules are inconsistent with our sovereignty.

Therefore, if Brexit does not deliver freedom from those rules, for your true Brexiteer that isn’t Brexit.

On the other hand, if you break from those rules, you will have trading friction because you’re no longer part of the single market.

The May approach was destined always to fail because it attempted to negotiate the unnegotiable.

This was to stay in step with Europe’s rules while at the same time reserving the right to depart from them.

As I and others tried to tell the Government for two years, Europe was never going to agree to that. NEVER. Because though their trade with the UK is important, their trade between the other 27 countries, governed by this unique trading system, is more important.