I arrived in Brussels as the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in early June, 2015. A fortnight later, Alexis Tsipras snubbed Brussels, and called a referendum on the third bailout that was designed to save the Eurozone from collapse.

The terms he was later given - €50bn of assets sold and a de facto control of economic policy surrendered - were so harsh they were later denounced as a "coup".

It taught me two things: that in the cause of its salvation the European Union can be profoundly flexible and exceptionally brutal, and that events can swiftly take a momentum that is hard to control.

Nothing of that experience gives me hope for the years that now await our country.

Britain is almost certainly out of the European Union

As far as Brussels is concerned, Britain has left.

At home on Friday morning, Britons were dumbstruck, agog at the result, or chuffed at having taught Brussels a lesson.

We now see street protests to overturn the result, internet petitions, suggestions that the UK or Scottish Parliament could revoke it or somehow make it go away. Westminster is occupied by Labour coups and Tory successions. Few seem to believe we are going.