Always beware over-optimism. Always fight that instinct, especially when it comes to the UK’s negotiations with Brussels. But just sometimes we can be forgiven for a sudden surging hope that at last this country is about to show our EU partners what we are made of.

After two and a half years of being pushed around in the playground of Brussels, we are turning, blinking, rolling up our sleeves, pushing our spectacles up our noses – and preparing to fight back.

I have heard it from the lips of very senior sources in government – speaking with the authority, it is claimed, of the Prime Minister herself – that this country is about to seek proper binding legal change to the current lamentable withdrawal agreement.

The PM wants to get rid of the backstop; that is, she wants to change the text so as to insert either a sunset clause or a mechanism for the UK to escape without reference to the EU. She is going to fight for a Freedom Clause – right there in article 185 of the protocol or thereabouts – that would finally give us the keys to our own future. If she can change the backstop, then yes, we would be able to do free trade deals, and yes, we would be able to vary our regulation, and yes, the whole of the UK would be able to leave the EU – proud and intact – without leaving Northern Ireland a perpetual hostage.