Last week Trudy Harrison, my neighbouring MP for Copeland, weighing up whether Brexit can be described as “a pig’s ear, a dog’s dinner, or a cat’s arse.” She spoke for me and I am sure also the vast majority of Mail readers. The one thing that unites all of us is surely despair over this dreadful mess.

The government has handled this process very badly. But in fairness to the prime minister, who I continue to respect, this would not have been plain sailing for whoever was in charge.

The fact is that what was promised to voters at the referendum has turned out to be totally undeliverable, an appalling deceit.

So the government has been trying to persuade MPs to accept an exit deal which is undeniably worse than the arrangements we have now – and a million miles from the land of milk and honey promised by the Leave campaign.

Like the vast majorities of my colleagues, I have refused to accept a deal that keeps us tied to key EU institutions but deprives us of any say over them; a deal which the government itself admits will hurt British living standards, jobs and be a step backwards on the cooperation measures we need to keep British citizens safe.

As this column goes to press, MPs are preparing to vote on a range of possible options – from leaving without any agreement at all to remaining as closely aligned as possible.

I am listening carefully to the arguments made but one thing of which I am increasingly convinced is the case for putting whatever parliament agrees back to the public in the form of a confirmatory vote.

“Oh no please not again!” I hear many of you cry. I completely understand, and believe me, there is nothing I would like more than for parliament to be able to move on to all the other issues in desperate need of change in the country.

But, without your clear authority expressed through a confirmatory vote on a proposed on the way forward, I am not prepared to interpret the mandate in of the EU referendum as a mandate to make our area poorer and make use perpetual rule takers from EU institutions over which we would no longer have any say.

All of the possible ways forward on which MPs are being asked to vote today involve different combinations of economic harm and loss of sovereignty. You should have the right to compare any of them with the arrangements we have now before the 650 MPs in the House of Commons sets the country’s course for generations to come.

Despite the Brexit mess, I’ve continued to fight your corner in Parliament to help make our constituency and country a better place.

Finally, I am hopeful that parliament will find time alongside Brexit for a debate to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the continuous at sea nuclear deterrent, which has been made possible of course by the amazing skills of generations of shipwrights in Barrow shipyard.

The country is in a mess, but we will still keep fighting to get things done regardless.