Too often, referendums have been used to get governments out of a political hole. As they have become more common, political pressure to hold them increases and they become harder to resist.
As his options narrow, Sunak has little choice but to get back to first principles, which would be the right course anyway.
The continent’s economic woes are confined to the business pages, whilst the scandalous conduct of the European Parliament is simply unreported.
A friend of Michael Gove and a former Liberal Democrats, he is bidding for the Daily Telegraph and is an investor in GB News, which he hopes to see at the centre of such an election, if it happens.
If a mainstream candidate is needed, when next the Conservative leadership is contested, in order to stop some more ideological figure such as Kemi Badenoch, it is just possible that Cleverly might fit the bill.
His greatest success was to make the Conservatives more conservative, but he does not have the gifts needed to sustain a rival party.
Outside the European Union we are free to conduct trade policy and set regulation which aligns with our interests, rather than those of the Eurozone core that dominates in Brussels.
In the same interview he said “I tend to be rather bad at politics”, which is true if one takes the holding of great offices of state as the yardstick of success.
Too many MPs and civil servants have fought to prevent the UK doing things differently, seeking to keep us tied to the EU whatever the costs.
Both the referendum and our eventual departure from the EU were delivered only with decades of legislative trench warfare in the House of Commons.
Should conservative parties pursue liberal-minded centrist support or compete against far-Right populists for working-class voters?
Today’s parliamentary bout provides an excellent opportunity to review other vital perspectives on the legislation – and see which approach might be closest to the Prime Minister’s own.
It is a party with no prospect of any majority in the House of Commons, which cannot and will not change a word of legislation – and will put in grave peril the real progress we have made since 2019.