The Prime Minister's proposal is also an existential threat to the future of the European Union. This isn't over.

When I first saw those incendiary leaks of Theresa May’s proposal last Thursday which neatly erased the significant red lines of her own Brexit policy, I thought this was either the most aggressive, uncharacteristically reckless provocation to her dangerous Cabinet colleagues imaginable – or else it was a set-up.

Yes, that was surely it: this had to be a deliberate, belligerent challenge from which she could then make a few tactical retreats at the theatrical Chequers event. That way, the Brexiteers could emerge claiming they had won concessions and she could maintain that her position had survived essentially intact. All the hype would produce an “agreement” in which everybody could claim to have saved face.