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John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, says the government could attempt two possible compromises to head off a rebellion but both have serious flaws. One, recently advocated by the Institute of Directors, would see the UK staying in a customs union for manufactured goods but not for most agricultural products.“Tariffs are high on agriculture so we can reduce our agricultural tariffs in future trade deals to help give us access on services,” Mr Springford says. “The trouble is this doesn’t tackle the Northern Ireland problem. There is a huge amount of agricultural trade between Northern Ireland and the republic, which means it would be impossible to maintain a frictionless border.”

The Trump administration does not hide its view that, if London wants a far-reaching trade deal, it will have to depart from its present regulatory alignment with the EU. That would gravely complicate the search for a solution to the Irish border problem, and it would deny the UK unfettered access to EU markets, as explained in this useful article for the Centre for European Reform think-tank.

Charles Grant, head of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, reckons the chances of stopping Brexit are now less than 5 per cent. A couple of prominent Remainer MPs with whom I’ve discussed the issue put the odds of stopping Brexit at between 20 per cent and 40 per cent. With so many informed people arriving at such wildly divergent conclusions, my own conclusion is that nobody really knows. There are just too many uncertainties.

National leaders want to roll back integration on other fronts — for example, by regaining full control over the appointment of the next European Commission president. Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska says these efforts suggest that “the irony of Brexit is that the EU is becoming more British, just as the UK is leaving the EU”.

"The EU could use its best endeavour to ensure the UK is party to its future FTAs. While the UK would remain responsible for negotiating its own market access, both the EU and UK negotiators could sit on the same side of the table in some parts of the negotiations," wrote Sam Lowe, from the Centre for European Reform.

Sam Lowe, from the Centre for European Reform, has highlighted a number of ways the UK-EU customs union could be markedly better than what Turkey has. For example, there could be a mechanism by which the UK is "substantively consulted" before the EU enters trade talks, which he acknowledges is possible given the "heft" Brussels would get from having Brexit Britain "on its team in future FTA talks".