Since the referendum of 2016, it’s been popular to depict the reaction of the losing side as a very slow progression through the early “stages of grief”, as described by two Swiss psychiatrists in the 60s. In response to loss, the subject first goes into denial, then exhibits anger, next starts trying to bargain her way out of the situation before succumbing to depression and finally reaching acceptance.

This was meant to be the first day of our life as a newly independent country. That it isn’t indicates that the last stage of grief – acceptance – was never reached. On the contrary, it now appears clear that even as the Eurosceptics were still crowing over their victory in 2017 and taking ever-more extreme positions on Brexit, it was in fact they who had gone into denial. They lost their ideal Brexit when the Tories lost their majority in 2017. Yet rather than salvaging what they could from the situation, they embarked upon a doomed march into the wilderness.

Along the way, I have lost count of the number of times Tory Brexiteers assured me confidently that everything was on track. “Number 10 is fully onside,” they declared. “The legislation has already been passed,” they exclaimed. “Nothing can stop us,” they boasted.

Today, all of this talk is revealed as meaningless bravado. The refusal to admit this earlier and compromise has set the country on a path towards a catastrophic denial of the referendum result. Jacob Rees-Mogg, for all his enlightening discourses on the British constitution, failed to acknowledge that ultimately Parliament can and will do what it likes, especially when faced with such a cripplingly weak Prime Minister. He was rightly monstered by Emily Maitlis on Newsnight this week for having said that, if the DUP supported it, he could now vote for an agreement he described only in November as turning Britain into a “slave state”. Perhaps, if he had realised this earlier, he could have tried to persuade his DUP friends.