General election: Tony Blair says Tories and Labour both ‘peddling fan…

Once we acknowledge all the above, and vote accordingly, yes untying the knot will take longer. The new parliament will be obliged to let the country decide Brexit on its merits, in a referendum, whether in the light of what we now know, we want to proceed with exit from Europe and if so, on what basis.

And then we will have a fresh election to decide who governs.

This is counterintuitive. It will be resisted with all the force that the extremes can muster – extremes whose narrative runs through much of our present politics and media, reinforced by the scourge of social media, but the alternative is a choice between two risks whose consequences we live with for a long time.