With 200 days to go to the date set for Britain to leave the European Union – 29 March 2019 at 11pm – it is worth thinking about what will happen between now and then if everybody means what they say. For if they do, the United Kingdom could be headed for a major constitutional and political crisis, and it is best to be aware of that before further and still more trenchant statements are made.

A very long list is developing of ideas that various participants are dead against. Steve Baker, Conservative MP and former minister, has said that at least 80 fellow Tory MPs are prepared to vote against a deal with the EU based on the Chequers proposals of the Prime Minister. Nick Boles, one of his colleagues, has said that a minimum of 40 Conservatives will, by contrast, vote against leaving the EU with no deal at all.

The Labour Party is against any deal that doesn’t give us nearly all the advantages of staying in the EU even though they accept we are meant to be leaving it. And Scottish Nationalists and Liberals are, of course, against any aspect of implementing Brexit at all.