Even today we still hear from too many of these Brexiteers little more than ill-informed wishful thinking (such names as Johnson, Redwood and Cash come to mind). Even David Davis said last week that it was “improbable” that we would stay in the single market, because this would prevent us from “taking control of our borders” (another complex problem dependent on much more than just our membership of the EU, such as the European Convention on Human Rights).

But at least Davis admitted that extricating ourselves from a system of government with which we have been enmeshed for 43 years is turning out to be more complicated than he had realised. More importantly, he conceded that the central role in the negotiations will be played not by him and his fellow-Brexiteers but by our rather cannier Prime Minister, Theresa May, herself.