It’s over. If Brexit happens at all – and for the first time I’m beginning to think it won’t – it will be on terms that keep the worst aspects of EU membership. Britain will be humbled in the eyes of the world, having tried to recover its independence and been faced down. The largest popular vote in our history will be disregarded, and the nation that exported representative government exposed as an oligarchy. Plus – and I know this sounds almost trivial next to those calamities, but it matters to me – the Conservative Party might never recover.

It all looked so different on the appropriately golden morning that followed the vote. I assumed, given the narrow result, that Britain would seek a Swiss-type relationship, keeping most of the EU’s single market rules but opting out of the customs union and the political aspects of membership. I went to see some of the ministers and officials involved, suggesting a number of Swiss leaders they ought to speak to. “Oh, no, Hannan,” I was told, “we’re going to do something much better than that!” Really, gentlemen? How’s that working out?

For two years, we have been wilfully narrowing our options until, with 100 days to go, we have three ugly possibilities before us. “It’s my deal, no deal or no Brexit”, Theresa May kept saying and, at 9.00pm on Wednesday, that statement became true. The only way to widen the choice would have been for a different Prime Minister to go to Brussels with a different offer – a Prime Minister who was genuinely ready to walk away if the other side remained vindictive.