In the weeks and months after the referendum there was much speculation about what Brexit actually meant - apart from Brexit that is. Would it be a hard or soft one? It was as if we were talking about a particularly complicated boiled egg. The result of the vote in June was very close and many people were still in shock. Some didn't even think it would actually happen. I naively put my name to the petition for a second vote. October came, and in her first conference speech as party leader, Theresa May surprised us all:
"For example, there is no such thing as a choice between “soft Brexit” and “hard Brexit”. This line of argument – in which “soft Brexit” amounts to some form of continued EU membership and “hard Brexit” is a conscious decision to reject trade with Europe – is simply a false dichotomy". (HERE).
We looked at each other. It seemed we were going to get a flexible, rubbery sort of Brexit, neither hard or soft. How was that going to work? We all heard Wolfgang Schauble, the German finance minister make it clear, "In is In, Out is Out," (HERE) but May seemed to be looking at a solution that was neither - a case of Out is In and In is Out.
Anyway, everybody was happy. The Brexiteers could dream of a Brexit with the consistency of a rubber mallet or a tractor tyre. Remainers had in mind a Brexit more like cushion foam.
Then came the shock Lancaster House speech where she first confirmed we would leave the single market and the customs union. It looked like hard had won! Brexiteers were jubilant. Remainers dismayed.
As time went on and the negotiations got underway, it was clear the EU were not going to play ball and they were going to force a choice on us. Schauble was right. The dichotomy Mrs May talked about in October 2016 wasn't false at all! It was all too real, as solid as you or me. The only thing we didn't know is which side of it she would bring us down on.
And we still don't know.
The British government (and I use the term loosely and collectively) is being dragged kicking and squabbling, after handcuffing itself to a fog of fantasies for the whole period of the negotiations, towards finally make the choice between a hard and soft Brexit. The PM has managed to lead her divided party almost to the finishing line, with many of them believing they were behind the hard Brexit banner, before she surprisingly unfurled quite a different flag. A very, very soft version. The result was uproar.
In sight of the finishing line an argument has developed, the one that they should have had in October 2016. If there's a lesson to learn, it must be that putting off difficult decisions doesn't make them easier. You can't fool all the people all of the time.
The decision that may be a party, nation and perhaps kingdom splitting one cannot be fudged or kicked along the road any more. But will it be hard or soft? We still don't know.
By Christmas we will know. Two and a half years after the referendum, and three months before we actually leave, we will finally start getting to know what Brexit means.
It's obvious the prime minister's plan is to force the ERG and the DUP to come round to accepting her plan because the alternative may be no Brexit at all. This morning on the Today programme on Radio 4 there was some discussion about the potential for getting the 48 letters needed to force a vote of no-confidence in Mrs May. The PM would do well to remember these people are fanatics. They don't respond to rational thinking at all. If she gambles that they will change their mind when it comes to a vote in The House, it may be as big a gamble as the referendum was for Cameron.
If they ever do get to 48 letters I think she will easily win the vote of no confidence but are those 48, many publicly named remember, plus the 10 of the DUP, going to do a rapid reverse and vote for her deal? I think it highly unlikely. Without those 58 votes, she cannot get her deal through.
