There are now 13 months left before the United Kingdom either crashes out of the European Union without any Brexit deal or enters a transition phase where it gradually eases away from its existing four-decade relationship with the political and economic bloc. The reality now is that most Britons and most certainly all Europeans are no clearer over what exactly it is that Britain wants in its new relationship with the other 27 member states.

EU officials are currently circulating the legal text of the first round of talks that concluded in December, a round that was supposed to have fixed the amount to be paid by the UK for its budgetary commitments to the EU; the rights of some 3 million EU citizens currently living in the UK and the 1.7 million Brits living across the rest of the EU; and the certainty of an open border between the Republic of Ireland to the south and Northern Ireland on the north of the island — the only land frontier that will exist between the UK and the EU, and one that has distinct political, economic and possibly violent overtones.

As it is now, UK Prime Minister Theresa May leads a minority government that is deeply divided over the very nature of Brexit. It is a cabinet that seems incapable of unity, one that is crippled by the vexious nature of Brexit, and on that is led by a woman seemingly incapable or unwilling to impose discipline.

While she and her senior ministers claim to have laid out a vision of the UK’s new vision of its relationship with Brussels in a series of speeches, it is as clear as mud and as insightful as fog that sweeps up the English Channel.

Negotiators in Brussels are frustrated and confused over exactly what Britain wants. But so too are most Britons.

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has now laid out that the UK will remain in a customs union with the rest of the EU — and that new approach has been welcomed by the Confederation of British Industry.

Rare indeed it is for the leading industrialists to endorse a socialist for a business policy, but that is what months of confusion and infighting have sown.

At least remaining in the customs union will ensure the openness of the Irish border and protect the peace that flows from the Good Friday Agreement.

Brexiteers have huffed and puffed for too long now — it’s about time a solid house was built on proper foundations.