The crowning irony is that the hole the UK government keeps digging itself deeper into was created by the previous administration, on which the blame for it could once have been placed. The window for repealing or at least significantly amending the law narrows with every defensive government outburst but, even if it doesn’t care about the rights and opinions of its own people, political pressure from the US makes some kind of compromise feel inevitable. The longer that takes, the more humiliating it will be.