It’s the “biggest Tory crisis since ‘45,” according to Conservative columnist Tim Montgomerie. It’s a “cloak and dagger” betrayal, says former cabinet minister Steve Baker. If May doesn’t deliver Brexit, Tory reactionary Jacob Rees-Mogg tells us, “Corbyn will win.” Recent polls seem to bear this panic out, with the Tories once more polling in the mid-thirties (around five points behind Labour) as some of its voters defect to UKIP.

The cause of the panic is Theresa May’s Brexit White Paper, planning the terms of the split from Europe. “Brexit means Brexit,” she told us in 2016. It turns out she was being ironic. Her government has come up with the softest Brexit it could get away with, maintaining a customs union from the EU and accepting its rules. In effect, the European Court of Justice will have jurisdiction, while some form of free movement of labor will continue.

The proposals please almost no one.