The Brexit negotiations should have been concluded last Thursday. That was the deadline the prime minister repeatedly said she would meet. To say that things have gone very wrong is an understatement. The UK and EU positions are as far apart as ever. And the repeated claim that the agreement is 80% or 90% complete ignores that the remaining part is the difficult bit.

The problems are many and fundamental. A prime minister weakened by her decision to call a snap election is having to conduct three sets of negotiations at once: one in Brussels, another with the Democratic Unionist Party and a third around the cabinet table.

As I go around the country, I meet people who — whether they voted “leave” or “remain”