So this is how it will probably now play out.

On February 27, the PM may finally and pre-emptively – before any vote on the so-called Cooper/Letwin amendment – surrender to MPs’ lobbying and agree to ask the EU for a Brexit delay.

Some of her close associates tell me that she could do this, although it would mean defying all precedent and deliberately facing down her ERG Brexiter MPs - who would go berserk.

The alternative would be for her to continue to maintain a formal position of opposing a delay to Brexit.

But if she continues to insist that a no-deal Brexit on 29 March is the default position, that would lead 15 or so ministers, including a minimum of three in the cabinet (Rudd, Gauke, Clark) to resign – because they are so implacably opposed to a no-deal Brexit that they would insist on voting for the Cooper/Letwin amendment, whose effect would be to force her to sue the EU for a Brexit delay.

Either way, by the end of February the PM will probably be in a position of knowing that any talks that are still going on to tweak her Brexit deal must be combined with a request for a Brexit delay.