The ferocious war of words on the merits of the EU deal has already been gathering pace.

A pointless one because the concept of ‘good’ is wholly relative to subjective perspectives and values. But as certain as death and taxes, the mouth-froth preceded any meaningful analysis.

Yes – at the point that the crass crescendo was hitting its opening curve, nobody had even read it.

Mind you, this deal was bottomed out months ago. The recent brinky-dink rollercoaster has all been either flash showboating or scaffolding flexible contingencies that would sell necessary trade-offs to the most rabid wolves at either extreme. Placating the psychos was always key to smoothing the path to an acceptance of inevitable compromise and to sidestep earlier promises.

But back to the social media frenzy, and conclusions were as ever being knee-jerked from pre-conceived attitudes and values, not on fact-based assessment of the detail. That is how cats roll in current times.

That same relegation of facts had in 2016 rocket-fuelled Brexit from the gammon fringes to the heady heights of rank outsider. From then on, the emotive spunk of a vibrant Leave campaign trumped condescending Remain indifference and stridently closed the gap at the ballot box. The whole jolly jaunt jammily jerked and tipped into Leave, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Had Remain stuck to factually based rationale and converted their open goal, they would have nailed it at a canter. After all, there was always a far greater mass of UK folk prizing economic certainty over any dreamy notions of sovereignty.

And now we are left with the sorry spectacle of sobbing sycophants whose direct line from Brussels – and with it guidance and at times instructions – has been snipped. It is unquestionably bitter regret and angst at apathetic and impotent referendum campaigning that explains the vitriol of legions of limp Liberals as a near-insurmountable, projected self-loathing.

They stood by and ushered the contrary combatants onto centre stage almost unopposed. That’s got to hurt. For all the bluster from butthurt centrists that Leave voters will have to ‘own’ any future challenges, they should really be looking closer to home.

Deep down, they all know this very well, and they should now wake up and down a shot or two of pragmatism. It’s happening, and we are where we are. While we are topping up our festive flutes with centre-lefty tears, the salient facts remain: it’s finito, and we all have to own it.

Let us now hope that the greatest win of all will be that we ditch this national obsession with the European ideal and move on.

But make no mistake – there is no going back. Any future opening to rejoin would be on federalist terms for which support from former Remain quarters would undoubtedly evaporate. In that sense, Rejoin is so far astray on a concreted back foot, the weedy Remainer corpse will likely never again be floating to the surface.

In 2016, we thought it was all over.

It is now.