Boris has given Theresa May a choice: rout her enemies, or be routed

The good news, one Tory conceded to me today, is that there is a measure of clarity now. Open warfare has replaced the clandestine skirmishing that has hitherto occupied the attention of the cabinet and the Conservative parliamentary party. You are either with the prime minister, for all her faults and shortcomings, or you are against her. This is a choosing time and there is no hiding place. 

As good news goes, this doesn’t go very far. 

Nevertheless, this is where we are. Ever since her Lancaster House speech – the foundational document of her tenure in office – the prime minister has stressed that she sought a Brexit deal that offered as much access to the single market as possible. The agreement she wanted would “take in elements of current single market arrangements in certain areas”. Doing so would not only be good for business, it would also go some way towards resolving the otherwise unresolvable problem of the Irish border. 

So it should not be considered a monumental surprise that the proposals hammered out – or, perhaps, dictated – at the Chequers summit were, in considerable part, dedicated towards preserving single market terms of trade to the maximum extent possible and on maintaining something close to “frictionless” trade in goods. 

You may think this hopelessly optimistic and something that the EU 27 could never accept – it being too close to the kind of cherry-picking they have long deprecated – but you cannot honestly say it is a breach of prime ministerial promises.