Dante and every colour sergeant at Sandhurst know the road to hell, and their advice to avoid it is the same: reassess at the halfway point to make sure you’re still on the right track. That is why, at the end of last year, I asked Theresa May at a House of Commons committee meeting what she had learnt from the first phase of the Brexit negotiations. With two years gone negotiating the terms of Britain’s exit from the European Union, what would she do differently so that we nail down our future relationship? Her answer was unclear.

Were Brexit the only issue we faced, this would be worrying. Britain needs to devise a completely new approach to Europe now we’re leaving. But with so