“Extraordinary” is one of the most overused and devalued words of recent times, I know a number of people who think the sun coming up or the rain falling from the sky is “extraordinary” . However, sat here in the Strasbourg Parliament, watching events in Luxembourg, I can say that we truly do live in extraordinary times.

What is transpiring is like a giant game of poker, bluff and counter-bluff, with very high stakes. The tricky thing in this game is that the PM is playing with a hand marked by the players and with others looking over his shoulder. Is it any wonder that the UK appears to be playing a bad hand, even when there is no such thing?

What makes this truly “extraordinary” is that it must be rare in the history of our nation that we have people in positions of power who have been and are, colluding with a foreign state against their fellow countrymen and are not called out as traitors. We did of course survive the Reformation, the English Civil War and for a year stood alone despite the europhile, defeatist elite exemplified by Halifax and Chamberlain.

A close look at the history of those events indicate the importance of a poker face and of bluff and counter-bluff. It is partly because of this that it is so difficult to predict with certainty what the long term outcome and consequences of current events will be.

The PM may be playing his cards close to his chest while bluffing to hide the expected outcome, at least in the short term of the next few weeks. But who is he bluffing and does he have an ace up his sleeve? If he doesn’t, he is likely to be taken to the cleaners by the Brexit Party. Is he bluffing his own Party in order to bring back the “pig with lipstick” treaty which he himself called vassalage, has he been smoking the dope from Mr Gove’s pipe?