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“The EU and US tried to bunch together all the trade disputes they had been having for decades [in the TTIP negotiations], but the differences in regulatory culture, different levels of precaution and desire for protection in different sectors proved too high a hurdle,” said Sam Lowe, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.

“Basically nobody has the faintest idea what will happen,” said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a research institute. “The risk is real of political deadlock in Britain with Britain drifting toward the cliff edge.”

BREXIT proposals set out in the Government's White Paper have zero chance of being accepted by the European Union in their current form, an economist with the Centre for European Reform think tank has warned. And senior research fellow Sam Lowe has suggested that the facilitated customs partnership idea set out in the document amounts to a "stalking horse" for the UK being part of a straightforward customs union.

Above all, there is a decision to be made between the current free movement of goods across Britain’s European borders (thus protecting both the peace settlement in Northern Ireland as well as manufacturing supply chains) or taking a maximalist view of “taking back control”. This choice is one that May has taken — in favour of the former. The white paper may not state this clearly — many political fig leaves remain in place — but as Sam Lowe rightly puts it, she is “inching our way towards Jersey”. That refers to the “Jersey model” of free movement of goods, with the UK being a full rule-taker as far as the production and trading of goods is concerned, which both Lowe and I have outlined.

Ian Bond and Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska represented the Centre for European Reform at the Prospect think tank awards, and were delighted to accept the award for Think Tank of the year.

The bizarre dynamic, experts warn, is likely to leave Putin emboldened after the meeting in Helsinki. “What generates stability is that your adversary knows that doing anything stupid will be met with a costly response,” Ian Bond, a former British diplomat in Moscow, told me. “So to the extent that they’re given a pass, you’re encouraging them to do it again and that is increasing instability.”