Michael Gove insists that the Chequers plan is the "right one for now", but the resistance it is facing on all sides means it can only emerge at the end of the Brexit process as a husk of its former self.

The dangers facing Theresa May's Brexit plan have encouraged an array of alternatives to be aired. Brexiteers outside Government tend to coalesce around a Canada-inspired Brexit. The Environment Secretary is known to have toyed with one inspired by Norway, i.e. Brexit Britain joining the European Economic Area. He has flirted with it so openly that it has led one minister to anoint him "St Michael of the EEA".

His cause has one major obstacle: Mrs May. The Prime Minister has been vehement in her views about the EEA, declaring in Florence: