The choice which faced us at the EU referendum has often been presented as lying between the status quo and the unknown, between security and uncertainty. Until the early hours of 24 June last year I was convinced that this would be the clincher: that the British public, though heavily Eurosceptic, would not quite have the balls to overcome their native conservatism and take what many would see as a leap in the dark.
Yet Jean-Claude Juncker’s ‘state of the union’ speech today dispels the notion that voting Remain would have been a vote to keep things as they are. Remaining in the EU as it now is was not an option on the ballot paper. Voting Remain would have meant being a member of an institution whose leaders are determined to drive it ever further towards a pseudo-nation. Juncker calls Britain’s decision ‘sad and tragic’ and says we will soon regret it.
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