There have been many times over the past two years when the most sensible Brexit course, the Norway option of membership of the European Economic Area and thus the single market, appeared to have been killed off forever.

Theresa May’s rejection of being in the single market in her speech to the Tory conference in October 2016 — the one when she did not lose her voice and the letters stayed on the backdrop — was one. Every time the government’s red lines on Brexit have been blurred, and there have been many, not being in the single market has been a constant. The final nail might have been expected to be the government’s white paper, based on the Chequers agreement. While this nudged closer