The drama reaches a crescendo, the excitement is almost too much and the Prime Minister appeals to the national interest to gather support for her deal. It is as if a play had been put on for the nation’s benefit with words meaning what you will and the suspension of reality allowing a player to say that something weak looks strong. As Shakespeare had it, “A goodly apple rotten at the heart, /O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”

Since Theresa May became Prime Minister, her words have sought to give reassurance, albeit sometimes of an elliptical kind. “Brexit means Brexit” and “no deal is better than a bad deal” are phrases that come to mind. At an early stage, Mrs May even set out a vision for the United Kingdom as “a truly global Britain – the best friend and neighbour to our European partners but a country that reaches beyond the borders of Europe too”. This meant leaving the customs union because “full Customs Union membership prevents us from negotiating our own comprehensive trade deals”.

As the Prime Minister said: “our objective… explicitly rules out membership of the EU single market” because, again in her own words, respecting the four freedoms “would to all intents and purposes mean not leaving the EU at all”. Mrs May promised a deal that would last because “after Brexit both the UK and the EU want to forge ahead… not find ourselves back at the negotiating table because things have broken down”.