Am I in the mainstream now?

The moment of Boris’s victory makes me stop and look back. In the referendum of 1975 — my first vote — I voted ‘Yes’ (i.e. Remain), but I remember feeling a twinge of admiration for Orkney and Shetland, the only area to vote ‘No’.

At Cambridge afterwards, I learnt and liked sovereignty arguments from people like John Casey and (when he paid a private visit to avoid the riots which attended him in those days) Enoch Powell.

In the early 1980s, I cheered on Mrs Thatcher’s European budget battle.

In 1984, attending my first European Council as a reporter, I was shocked by the way of doing business — running a continent as a diplomatic game.

In 1985-86, I felt dismay that Mrs Thatcher was all out for the Single European Act which abolished whole areas of national veto.