When the Tories and Labour admit that the economy is up the creek thanks to a hard Brexit, as well as pandemic and Putin, we might begin to limit the damage.

There were reasons why so many voted Leave. Austerity put paid to spending on infrastructure, communities were left behind, Boris Johnson did his spiel, Labour was absent and the papers blamed every ill on Brussels. Eight years later the dying embers of the Conservative party, of which I was once a member, still trade on these divisions in a shameless attempt to cling onto power.

Sunak has the bare-faced cheek to describe his Northern Ireland deal as “the best of both worlds," but he won’t contemplate closer ties to the world’s biggest trading bloc for rest of the UK. Starmer is too scared to utter the ‘B’ word for fear of causing upset. Yet the Office for Budget Responsibility say we will be 4% worse off outside the EU – equivalent to tens of billions on health, education, pensions, policing and the environment.