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To purloin an apposite line of Shakespeare, “We are in Brexit stepped in so far that, should we wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er.”

I think Remainers still preserve the hope that all this unpleasantness could easily be put behind us if only we could hold a second referendum and vote, however narrowly, the opposite way. Well, we could try, but it would never work, for two reasons:

• The EU would be sure to demand guarantees that a humiliated UK would not seek to recover some self-esteem by obstructing their renewed efforts towards integration and a United States of Europe. Please remember that the Eurozone already caucus separately from the other members and can outvote them in Council. There are fewer and fewer areas of effective veto powers that the UK can use since the extension of qualified majority voting. Cameron’s deal, exempting the UK from ‘ever closer union’ is no longer on the table. I can’t see how the UK could expect to preserve its rebate, or its exceptional status in respect of the Euro and Schengen even into the medium term. And the next Eurozone crisis is surely on its way as the crippled economies of southern Europe drag like a sea anchor on the bloc’s economic growth.

• The EU is only too aware that the struggle for Brexit has entrenched bitter hostility to it in half the UK population, and they will expect UK politicians to exploit that at any and every opportunity. They will not be disappointed in that expectation. Today, as the government’s hapless efforts to negotiate Brexit have floundered, Labour has been able to win the support of disaffected Remainers without even committing itself to Remain. Does anyone seriously think that frustrated Leavers will not be equally easily rallied behind vigorous domestic opposition to the first infelicitous new EU policy that comes along? After Remain, a pro-EU government would be every bit as vulnerable to anti-EU sentiment in the polls as the present government is to Remainer sentiment. If the two-party system broke under the strain, we might even find parliament’s Remainer majority eroded away and replaced by Leavers. 

You can’t simply suppress an ambition as powerful as Brexit has become. You can’t go back and pretend it never happened. You can only suck it and see. Either it will succeed, and thus eventually reunite the nation behind it, or it will fail, and thus eventually reunite the nation behind a desire to rejoin.

In consequence, parliament now faces the same choices that they faced before it, and these choices will not have become any more palatable. A second referendum offers no long term solution, as explained above. May’s deal will still be awful and will still not be a Brexit deal. Calling an election will require a lot of turkeys to vote for Christmas.

No-Deal will still be the least bad option and, if we get started right after the break, we might even be ready for it by October.