How about making it the best of three referendums?

As expected, the House of Lords – the UK’s unelected second chamber – inflicted a heavy defeat on the government on Wednesday evening. The Lords is Remainer Central and tails are up. An imminent vote in the Commons looks like being tight. The government could be forced to beg the EU to be allowed membership of a customs union, denying the UK control of its trade policy.

In my column for The Times I argue that such an outcome would represent a national humiliation. The EU would email us tariff schedules and rules, and it would insist on us complying with many of the Single Market’s rules (that is high regulatory alignment) to smooth cross border relations. The sixth largest economy in the world would have made itself a client state, not an independent country.

If you are a Remainer, determined to overturn the 2016 referendum, this must all sound quite hopeful. Britain inside a customs union means we would technically leave the EU, but be parked in a waiting room – taking orders from the EU and having our trading negotiations conducted by a foreign power. Then it might be easier to get back in to the EU once all us Brexiteers have died or suddenly realised that we are, as Remainers say, idiots.

There is another possibility, and I admit it is nothing more than a possibility. But we live in weird times.

If Parliament insists on this constitutional and economic nonsense, under the cover of worrying about the Irish border, then it may well be Brexiteers demanding another referendum to knock down Parliament’s opposition.

The retail offer, I assume, in such a referendum would be the UK forced to obey EU rules, because the Irish government and Brussels say so. For some reason, many ultra-Remainers seem to think that because this option (inside a customs union, following EU rules and paying 38 billion quid for it) was not discussed in the referendum then it is okay to enforce it now. Yet, if it had been proposed in 2016 – Britain can leave in name only – do they really think this would have swung it for Remain?

It is feasible that British voters will like all this, or accept being parked in the EU’s waiting room. Who knows.

Nonetheless, even if another referendum happened and the client state deal passed, why should that be the final word? People will need time to look at how it works or does not. Perhaps it should be best of three. Or we could hold a referendum once every four years, like the Olympics?

No. Instead, parliament should accept that Britain voted to leave the EU, not to be its client state in perpetuity. Parliament should get on and deliver Brexit.