It's less than 9 months away.
The cabinet is split - the majority of the most senior Tory MPs, who originally favoured remaining in the EU, now favour 'Soft Brexit' - formally exiting the EU while remaining tied to its basic rules (and under the jurisdiction of the ECJ) in order to maintain single market access. This is anathema to the Leave side of the party, and they now believe that Theresa May is lying to them in order to get her way. May now needs opposition support to get anywhere.
All the while, there is growing support for a 'second referendum' - either a straightforward re-run of the 'In or Out?' question (seen as a betrayal of democracy to the majority who voted to Leave in the first vote) or, more legitimately, a referendum on whether or not the UK people accept the Brexit deal once it has been agreed. I think we can safely rule that out on the basis that there doesn't even seem to be a deal that can make it through Parliament, thus another referendum would be a de facto re-run of the first - and I doubt that will happen. But imagine that it did - the UK public would almost certainly vote it down - the Leavers would vote against it because it is too soft, Remainers would vote against it because soft Brexit is much worse than simply staying in the EU in the first place - so a public vote would scupper the deal virtually no matter what.
And last but by no means least, there's the EU negotiators lying in wait to reject the deal if it gives the UK anything like an advantage or a benefit over full EU membership - as if we needed reminding, this means Soft Brexit
is not possible - just like asking the Greeks whether they wanted to pay off their debts or have them written off, it's a no-brainer how people would vote... but it's kind of pointless asking people to vote on something that cannot be delivered!!
I don't envy Dominic Raab - though I sincerely hope he spends a bit longer talking to the EU than the
4 hours David Davis spent talking to Michel Barnier this year...