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But, Michael, surely parliament did have its say. It passed the Referendum Act. If it had wanted to endorse the result it should have said so at the time. Clearly it chose not to do so and, by necessary inference, it therefore authorised HMG to proceed according to the referendum vote without more ado. What if the result of that vote had been to stay? Are you suggesting that parliament should then have had a debate, and a vote, on the terms on which we remained in the EU?

As for the removal of citizens' rights argument, HMG has already said it would re-enact all EU legislation as UK law and then repeal what it didn't like piecemeal. What's 'not to like' about that?

Hilary Benn and Stephen Kinnock, two Labour MPs for whom I have a lot of time BTW, along with Frank Field, have stated that there is no mood among their MPs for voting against the referendum result. Hardly surprising really as a lot of their constituents voted to leave and they would be committing political suicide were they to do so.

And they know full well that, if this whole situation gets too sticky for Theresa May, she need only call a snap general election and, given the above and the general state of abject chaos in the Labour party, half of them would lose their seats.

And there's nothing like the threat of the loss of their seat to unite MPs. Sorry, yes there is, a vote on a pay increase for, yes, MPs.

Finally, does anyone know if there is a right of appeal to the ECJ by the loser in next month's appeal to SC? What an irony it would be if the ECJ ended up deciding indirectly if UK remains in the EU...

As Graucho Marx said "I wouldn't want to belong to a club which would have me as a member".