If this Conservative government fails to act quickly, it risks not only Northern Irish peace unravelling, but the slow reversal of Brexit itself.

Perhaps a policy that looks on the face of it a foolish adventure of the post-Cold War liberal hegemonic type could in fact be a wise strategic move.

If you can strangle the supply of key components, you can suffocate a country in manifold ways. No bonnet cables? No cars. No medicines? No healthcare. No semiconductors? No nothin'.

Its goal is global efficiency and global efficiency means banks in the west and sweatshops in the east, and whoever attempts to get in the way needs to get with the times.

However, like most debates regarding Brexit, it’s not quite that straightforward. For starters, breaking international law happens as regular as clockwork.

As other contributors have commented, the pandemic makes a solid case against wading further into economic globalisation because, as the world becomes more interconnected socially and economically, the breeding ground for deadly illnesses like coronavirus becomes an increasingly grave reality.