Roll on 2118: We’ll all be dead, but at least Brexit will nearly be over

The next 100 years: a timeline of notable milestones. 2033AD: Manchester City win the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and the Third World War.

2046: The late Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected leader of the Labour Party for a historic 25th consecutive time.

2071: Polar ice caps on display at the British Museum, in a hotel minibar.

2089: Robots become Earth’s dominant life form, and immediately set about exterminating all humans who refuse to serve as their slaves.

2090: Mankind flees Earth to establish a new civilisation on Mars.

2117: An estimated 99.99999 per cent of all life on the Mars colony is wiped out by an asteroid.

2118: Political insiders suggest that Theresa May is on the brink of finalising a deal on the UK’S future relationship with the EU.

It’s funny, when you stop to think about it. Today, Mrs May is finally going to present her Cabinet with a Brexit withdrawal agreement. Which, in theory, is exciting. At last! The end is in sight! The promised land is within touching distance! It’s so close we can smell it! Drink it in, boys!

The pure and beautiful air of freedom, glorious freedom!

Unfortunately, though, it isn’t really true. The end isn’t in sight.

Because even if the Cabinet does approve Mrs May’s agreement, and Parliament approves it too (neither of which she can be confident about) – our soul-sapping talks with the EU won’t be over. In fact, they’ll barely have begun. Because then we’ll have talks on the “future relationship”. Who knows how much time that requires? Who can say for sure that the 21-month “transition period” will be enough?

Not our MPS, it seems. “How many people in this House actually believe,” Labour’s Hilary Benn asked the Commons yesterday, “that between now and December 2020, all the issues relating to our future partnership are going to be negotiated successfully? I bet almost no one.”

His fellow MPS did not respond. Perhaps they felt Mr Benn was getting ahead of himself. They had enough on their plates. They were in the middle of an outstandingly dull debate about Labour’s call for the Government to publish its legal advice on any withdrawal agreement. In the end, the motion was approved without a vote.

Only afterwards did we hear a withdrawal agreement was nigh.

A relief, no doubt, to Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer. “I’m sure I’m not the only one,” he’d groaned, “who feels as if we’ve been living and reliving the same week for months...”

Chin up, everyone. We’ll get there in the end. Roll on 2118.