The news that the prime minister, Theresa May, is to take personal control over the Brexit negotiations and to demote newly appointed Brexit secretary Dominic Raab to bag carrier should confirm to every Leave voter that there is now zero chance of getting what we voted for. The truth, of course, is that civil servant Olly Robins will continue to dominate our strategy without the hindrance of a David Davis type arguing for a clean Brexit.

From the start, our negotiating strategy has been a disaster. If I have learned one thing from nearly 20 years in Brussels, it is that the bully boys of the EU Commission only respect one thing: brute force. When the French threatened to veto EU enlargement at the Edinburgh summit in the 1990s unless the Strasbourg parliament met on 12 occasions every year, they won! And so the traveling circus within the EU Parliament continues to this day, to the great economic benefit of the city of Strasbourg.

Our position from the outset has been to make a series of concessions in the hope that Monsieur Barnier will, in return, offer a reasonable trade deal. We have now made so many concessions we are a laughing stock in Brussels. In the run-up to the October deadline, at which the terms for leaving should be agreed, the genuine possibility of deadlock in Brussels and Westminster looms larger. Be in no doubt that the campaign to suspend Article 50 from March 2019 is now in full swing and a total betrayal of the referendum vote may be just around the corner. No doubt Mr Robbins and the giant multinationals will enjoy their summer holidays.