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In the 1,022 days since 17.4million people voted for Brexit, some wonderful things have happened.

Most of the country now understands the Good Friday Agreement, knows how the single market works, and has figured out that Boris Johnson is about as poisonous, emissions-wise, as a rocket made of bratwurst and powered by some posh throbber hanging out of the window and shouting "BLAAAAAH!" at passers-by.

This newly-discovered knowledge is of benefit to the nation, but there is a price to pay. We've also got political chaos, the Far Right, and some sadist on a TV news desk has deemed it necessary for us to have a daily dose of that strutting knuckle Mark Francois.

He's the sort of gammon that will never produce crackling, just retain a wobbly, white outer shell. He's swine fever in a suit.

So yes, those bits of the electorate that could be bothered voted for Brexit, and the other 73.5% of the population learned why not voting was a bloody stupid idea. If more people had voted Leave the country wouldn't be so divided; if more had voted Remain, the nation could have kept its sanity.

But after two meaningful votes that weren't, a bunch of indicative votes that didn't, a no confidence vote that produced too much confidence, and lots of talk about how you can't vote again on these things, there's only one option left for the Prime Minister: cancel Brexit.

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After a year of belligerent red lines and waving Liam Fox around, Theresa May lost her majority. A year after that, she lost her party and now doesn't have enough support to run a bath, never mind the country.

She has not, can not, and will not, get her deal through Parliament, even with the help of the Labour Party that she's just realised exists. The Reds are just as divided, and no more likely to follow instructions than the Blues, who appear to be slightly less well-behaved than a toddler on a jelly-and-crack comedown.

With all other Parliamentary work shelved, moribund or ignored, there's no way for her to build popularity ahead of a general election. Which she cannot afford anyway - there's only £1.5m in the Tory coffers, and the hedge funds are keeping their wallets shut until the odds are in their favour.

Leaving the EU is dependent upon controlling our borders, and seeing as our only land border with the EU is the one border we can't control, there is probably no form of a deal that could get majority support in either the country or Parliament. All statements to the contrary are a sham, a pretence at doing the homework requested.

Theresa knows that. She's just not telling you.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

If a general election was held, it would probably produce a Parliament just as badly-hung. And likewise a second referendum - the turnout would probably be lower, and the mandate therefore even more furiously-debated than the first.

The EU won't renegotiate the deal, for the simple reason the one they've offered is performing precisely as hoped. It protects its members, preserves the Good Friday Agreement, and makes it perfectly clear that Remaining is an infinitely wiser choice.

It has already offered a short extension, and Theresa is asking today for another one, to June 30. She might be given as long as a year.

If Theresa cannot change the Parliamentary arithmetic - and all the indications are that all she could do is make it worse - there are only two possibilities.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

First, the UK could leave without a deal. There are two arguments in favour of this:

1. It requires no effort at all

2. About 20% of the public support it

The arguments against are manifold, including the fact that 52% of the country think it's a damn silly idea. But the strongest is that it would require instant border checks in Northern Ireland, followed by these same schmucks negotiating terms with the World Trade Organisation member countries, and if that happens we must as well just let the IRA have the Crown Jewels, as well.

Mercifully, there is no way a No Deal would get past Parliament. And it is at this point that all of the things Theresa May actually has the power to do boils down to the bleedin' obvious.

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With no way to resolve the impasse in Parliament or the population, no agreement that could please enough people, and without even the option of saying "f*** it, let's just hoard dishwasher tablets and gin" there is only one thing the Prime Minister can do without asking for anyone else's approval.

She can revoke Article 50. Unilaterally, without consultation, without asking Parliament if it minds, without breaching any legal obligations to obey the result of the referendum. It requires only a letter, a stamp, and some realism.

She just will not, or cannot, admit that is now the only option.

The problem she faces in doing it is one of marketing, which is perhaps why she's treading water hoping that a catchy strapline presents itself. How do you reverse a ferret, once it's up Frau Merkel's trousers and has your name on it?

(Image: Christopher Furlong)

The problem with Brexit has always been political necessity. It was necessary for the Tories to settle the issue, it was necessary they ask the country to do it because they couldn't, and then, even though it was the opposite of what people voted for, it became necessary to trigger Article 50 before we had a plan because David Cameron said that's what HE would do.

The fact he was on the losing side and then ran away was no reason for anyone to question the strategy, which proves disastrous only now we're knee-deep in doo-doo and being attacked simultaneously by fascists, Frenchies, the IRA and Braveheart.

The referendum was politically-binding, not legally so. All efforts to enforce it are being done not because the law requires it, but because previous statements by politicians do. Increasingly, those promises are sounding like the sort of thing you hear from someone in the pub with a convenient glut of Albanian cigarettes.

Only when retreat becomes politically necessary will Theresa call it. And we are perhaps only weeks away from that point.

(Image: Guy Bell/REX)

A million have marched for revocation. Six million have signed their names to it. The fascists have fought police outside Downing Street, trust in politicians has never been so low, and economic growth has slowed to the point where we could be overtaken by basket-weaving sloths.

The Cabinet couldn't agree on a cup of tea, Parliament has stopped parlaying and started spouting Tennyson poems like angsty Year 10s, and even passionate Leavers are starting to say this was all a terrible idea.

When the EU turns around and says it cannot keep granting us silly extensions that solve nothing, when repeated cliff-edges undermine the economy, when the next general election in 2021 looks unacceptably impossible, Theresa will have to revoke Article 50.

She will perhaps sell it as a technical 'delay', and that it would be triggered again when there's support for it. She might say it was a false deadline, or that a big boy made her do it and ran away.

(Image: Empics Entertainment)

But it is genuinely the only thing she has the power to do. She knows it, and now you know it.

She just won't admit it, in case it makes her look bad. In the meantime we're left to watch Mark Francois sizzle pinkly on the evening news, while praying for a rain of mustard.