The people had, quite frankly, had enough. Following the substantial deindustrialisation of the 1980s and 1990s, America was not alone in having what I describe as a “slow burn” of resentment and bitterness about the political system. We had it too, and the global meltdown in 2008/9, as well as the austerity measures that followed, hit the same people in the same communities that deindustrialisation had affected all those years before.

So what are the lessons? Quite obviously, that people believed our democracy and political system did not reflect their concerns and their cry for help. I understand some of this because, during my eight years in government, going back to the community that I served in the city in which I was raised informed my views much more effectively than anything I heard within what is described as the Westminster bubble. At community meetings as well as at my advice surgeries, I would get a dose of reality.

To be frank, people thought that our whole political debate was about those who were doing all right, who lived in a global economy and moved about not just on holiday but for business without thinking or worrying about what would happen tomorrow. The people who really felt aggrieved, and very often in despair about what was happening to their lives, were cut off from the benefits of globalisation and felt instead that they were its victims.

To understand this, and why, if there were to be a second referendum now, I believe that the majority would still vote to leave, is critical if we are to get our democratic system back on track.