Shortly after the House of Commons confounded the wider world by actually voting for something – an early general election – Remainers started to get very worried indeed. So they activated Plan B.

Technically, it’s Plan C, since Plan A – securing a victory in the 2016 referendum – has long since been despatched with. The original Plan B was to block any withdrawal deal in Parliament and then to claim that this impasse demanded a rerun referendum. Even that was looking like less than a remote possibility by the time the Tantrum Parliament was put out of our misery.

So Plan C it is: to capitalise on Remainers’ previous warnings of a no-deal Brexit. Previously this scenario of tariffs, lorry queues and food riots (also known as a “cliff edge” Brexit, for those keeping up with the melodramatic political lexicon of our age) was used in order to justify (mostly Labour) MPs voting against Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, even though doing so would increase the chances of leaving the EU without a deal.

But it seemed to have some resonance with those parts of the electorate still paying attention, and it was the only game in town if you still adhered to the view that Remain, rather than obeying the decision of the electorate, was the country’s best option.