Based on what MPs have said during eight days of debate, tomorrow’s vote on the Prime Minister’s proposed Brexit deal, which the Government has secured for our departure from the EU, looks most unlikely to go in its favour.

This is not surprising. The heady expectations of easily negotiated trade deals, freedom from EU regulations and economic growth and prosperity promised by Leaver politicians are long gone.

The deal reflects the reality that our country is being asked to embark on a prolonged period of great uncertainty, where our influence once outside the EU is reduced.

We have to continue to follow all its rules, and any future relationship has yet to be agreed and will almost certainly require continuing to observe many of those things that were disliked and we were promised would go. It is no wonder that many Conservative colleagues reject it.

Those who wanted to leave the European Union see it as the death of their dreams.

For those of us who believe that in leaving the EU we are making the biggest mistake of our recent history, the utter variance of the current outcome with the false expectations raised in 2016 compels rejection, because it condemns our country to a third-rate future which we have the ability and duty to try and prevent.

The Opposition parties will vote against it too. Why should they be saddled with any responsibility for such a failure even if, in the case of Labour, it has put forward no credible alternative? The fact that well under a quarter of the electorate seem to want this deal tells its own story.

But rejection of the deal in itself does not solve the dilemma we face.

In 2016 the public voted by a majority to leave the EU. As I can see from my mailbag, some are angry at being deprived of their hopes and expectations. They demand action to implement their vote, just as others require we should think again and abandon the project entirely. Some are so understandably fed up with the whole thing that they just want it over with. The trouble there, however, is that even acceptance of the PM’s deal would not help them, as far from offering a quick end to the turmoil it would just usher in a new phase of it.

The days that follow the vote are likely to be crucial to our country’s future

So the days that follow the vote are likely to be crucial to our country’s future. If both the Government and Parliament cannot come together to find a solution then inactivity leads to an unstructured crash out with no deal at all on March 29.

A small minority of MPs consider this to be a price worth paying to leave the EU and insist that it is the only way left to honour the referendum result. But many others consider that the chaos that would follow is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to happen.

That then requires either extending the Article 50 period, which can only be done with the consent of all other EU states, or revoking Article 50 entirely and bringing the Brexit process to an end, in contradiction of the referendum result.

Extension will only be offered for a good reason. Simply a desire for more time for kicking the can down the road looks most unlikely.

It was the growing anxiety about this that led me to table my amendment last week to shorten the time the Government must follow before coming back to the Commons to state what it intends to do and allow us to express our own views.

This would not have been needed had the Government not sought consistently to reduce the possibilities for the Commons to express any contrary view to its own by its wording of business motions of the House.

There has never been a conspiracy between me and the Speaker to get this amendment put to the vote. It was tabled without any consultation with him. But I am pleased about the improved capacity of the Commons to do its work, that he felt able to allow it to be voted on.

It would, however, be much better in the event that the Government loses the vote on the deal that it engages in an open dialogue with the Commons as to what to do next.

There is currently no majority for anything, and alternatives to the deal such as a Norway-plus customs union relationship remain very speculative

There is currently no majority for anything, and alternatives to the deal such as a Norway-plus customs union relationship remain very speculative.

It is also hard to see how Leave voters will not feel even more disappointed if they find, at the end, that we have accepted a long-term relationship that removes all participation and influence in the EU but ties us to follow all its rules save in agriculture and fisheries.

This is why I continue to believe that a further public consultation through a referendum offers the best way forward.

As a strong believer that Brexit is a very damaging mistake that becomes more obvious every day, I see sound democratic reasons for asking the electorate to confirm what it wants to do.

But in doing so I entirely accept that if the choice is to leave the EU then we must do so, and both choices are now implementable.

But getting there, or indeed to any other destination, needs proper debate. Yesterday’s Government-generated hysteria over “coups”, and wild assertions that rejection of the PM’s deal is democratically unacceptable, contributes nothing to achieving this and creates the very atmosphere of confrontation we should strive to avoid.