Let’s briefly rewind to early 2016.

Great minds in Fine Gael were salivating over their captivating election slogan; “Keep The Recovery Going”. Donald Trump was still considered a joke candidate for the White House. And a British Prime Minister was returning from Europe with an unpopular deal.

David Cameron got an agreement in February 2016 that saw some concessions on immigration and the “ever-closer” union before just days later calling the Brexit referendum.

The rest is history.

But what if Cameron had returned with a better deal from Europe in his back pocket? Or if the Remain side had done a better job selling it over the course of the referendum?

The similarities with the mess Theresa May now faces are striking.

She has a deal on the table - signed off by 28 governments - yet it won’t mean a damn if she can’t pass it in the Commons.

While Europe is offering precious little in the way of further concessions. A strategy which could actually make a no-deal scenario more likely.

Few concessions were offered in 2016 and we got Brexit. With few being offered in 2018 we could get the worst Brexit.

As Theresa May went from leader to leader with the begging bowl yesterday she had a clear ask. Give me something I can use to prove to MPs that the backstop won’t last forever and that we won’t always be tied to Europe.

EU leaders are willing to give her all the assurances she needs, with one major caveat - it can’t be part of the withdrawal agreement. And that means it has no official legal force.

It would form part of the political declaration reached between the EU and the UK. But at the end of the day that’s only words, despite how seriously EU leaders take these declarations.

Convincing rebellious MPs who already distrust the EU to take the word of European leaders is not a task anyone would relish.

So we’re now heading for one of a few outcomes.

Either both sides come up with the fudge of the century to give assurances around the backstop enough semblance of legal significance for the deal to get passed.

Or it fails in the House of Commons and we all tumble off the cliff into a no-deal Brexit that will rip a €4bn hole in the Irish economy.

Or there’s the solution Leo Varadkar has been pushing in the last week.

David Cameron started Brexit, Theresa May can end it.

Revoke or extend Article 50 - or call a second referendum and let the British people solve what their politicians can’t.