If nothing else, the Union has successfully united the vested interests of the European political class.

Nigel Lawson, long-time No. 2 to Margaret Thatcher, wrote a short but pointed letter to The Spectator last week. He said that Lord Kerr, the British diplomat who drafted Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that Britain invoked to leave the Union, told him that he had drafted it specifically so that it would be very difficult for any country to leave.

He was certainly successful in this aim: for the philosopher-kings of the EU do not want any damned-fool population getting in the way of the implementation of their wisdom.

This view accords perfectly with the founders of the “European project” over 60 years ago; they wanted to eliminate messy politics through neat, clean administration.

Britain has been thoroughly humiliated by the whole episode, but history has no end, and Yugoslavian-style wars of secession may yet, in the distant future, occur.

Theodore Dalrymple is a contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, from which this column was adapted.