Every day there is some fresh claim in the press – backed up by people who should (and perhaps really do) know better – that we must accept whatever outrageous terms we are offered by an intransigent EU because we are not prepared for no deal and it would be a disaster. This line is pushed by Remainer Cabinet ministers trying to scare us into swallowing the Withdrawal Agreement, and their friends campaigning for a second referendum – the Work & Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd’s brother Roland prominent among them.

This is Project Fear Mark (I think) III, which claims that we will all “crash out” over the white cliffs of Dover into the Channel at 11pm on 29 March 2019 and wake up to certain chaos and doom.

If true, it would be a terrible indictment not only of this government but also of our civil service. And it is absolutely untrue, as anyone who, like me, has been involved in Brexit work for the past two-and-a-half years in Whitehall will tell you.

It is rather shocking that not only the Remainer media but even members of the Government are putting civil servants on the hook for their own political purposes, by implying that they have failed in their clear duty to prepare for eventualities. It may be true that certain civil servants are biased in favour of the EU. That is because continued EU membership means certainty, and civil servants love certainty. It makes planning one’s family commitments, work-life balance and daily commute a lot easier. Strong and stable. Dull and secure. Plodding and punctilious... The very opposite of challenging, new and rewarding.