GETTY In November 2010 we declared that we would campaign for Britain to leave the EU

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About how we won back our sovereignty so that Britain will soon once more be a self-governing, independent democracy. No longer a star on someone else’s flag but once again the red, white and blue of a successful, time-honoured union. Not party of a European Union, but the United Kingdom. The story actually starts long before my direct involvement. In the years before the 1997 general election, when John Major was wanting to keep his options open for scrapping the pound sterling and joining the euro. “Don’t bind my hands,” he would later plead in that robotic monotone of his. But a patriotic billionaire named Jimmy Goldsmith had other ideas. He very much wanted to bind the hands of Major and all the Brussels- loving political class.

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So he set up a party called the Referendum Party and threatened to stand candidates against Major’s beleaguered Tories in the 1997 election unless they promised to hold a referendum before joining the euro and abide by the decision of the public. Eventually Major buckled and made that promise. And then Tony Blair had no option but to follow suit or his smooth glide to power would have been endangered. The result was that we stayed out of the euro and thus preserved enough of our national independence to make Thursday’s plebiscite possible. Goldsmith proved something else as well. That a small party could wield enough leverage over a governing party in a tight spot to force it to give in to the will of the people when it really didn’t want to. So now let’s fast-forward a few years to the outrage of David Cameron abandoning his “cast iron” pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty – the agreement that turned the EU into a de facto state. The threat of a European superstate was back at Britain’s gate and the people were outraged at being denied their say.

Britain votes to LEAVE EU Fri, June 24, 2016 LIVE: UK set to leave the EU as projections across several news websites claim Britain votes out. Play slideshow REUTERS 1 of 71 Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), makes a statement after Britain voted to leave on the European Union

With the new euro currency already in turmoil and Cameron’s Tories locked in an unpopular coalition with the Lib Dems, it was time to use some popular leverage once again. So the Daily Express took a bold decision. In November 2010 we declared that we would campaign for Britain to leave the EU either directly or, more realistically, via a referendum of the British people on membership. Cameron, like Major before him, was in a tight spot. With many Lib Dem voters having switched to Labour and with boundary changes designed to improve the Tory chances in 2015 having been blocked, it seemed almost impossible for the Conservatives to hang on to power at the next election. And as luck would have it, to add to Cameron’s woes, an upstart anti-EU party named Ukip was nipping at his party’s heels, robbing it of a crucial extra point or two in the polls. So the Daily Express teamed up with Ukip and its charismatic and fearless leader Nigel Farage to campaign for that referendum.

Mr Farage helped us deliver hundreds of thousands of campaign coupons to Downing Street. We may in return have given his party quite a lot of favourable coverage and you, our patriotic readers, began switching support to it in large numbers. Pretty soon Farage’s People’s Army was firmly on the march and Cameron’s Tories were being terrorised in much the same way they had been by Jimmy Goldsmith’s Referendum Party under John Major pre-1997. Looking down the barrel of lost seats, scores of Tory MPs started to enthusiastically back our campaign for a referendum on EU membership. In October 2011 more than 80 of them rebelled against a three-line whip and supported a motion that called for a referendum.Hundreds of thousands more Daily Express campaign coupons were sent to Downing Street.

PA Ukip began to take huge chunks out of the Tory vote in parliamentary by-elections

Ukip began to take huge chunks out of the Tory vote in parliamentary by-elections. Finally, in January 2013, Cameron buckled as Major had done before him and promised an in/out referendum if he won the 2015 general election. Most people, no doubt Cameron included, thought it was a pledge he would never have to deliver. He must have felt he could rely on blaming Lib Dem partners in a second coalition for blocking it. Soon after, I left the Daily Express to stand for Ukip in the 2014 European elections, which Ukip actually won. So I became an MEP. And then we in Ukip changed tack a little bit. Declaring we had “maxed out” on Tory support, we began seriously to target disenchanted Labour voters. Our policies of switching spending from Brussels to the NHS and of limiting immigration for working class jobs saw us picking up more and more support from disenchanted former Labourites. Come the general election of 2015, it turned out we did more damage to Labour than to the Tories. It was Labour voters switching to Ukip that allowed the Tories to win seats like that of Ed Balls in Yorkshire.

GETTY Finally, in January 2013, Cameron buckled as Major had done before him and promised a referendum

It was therefore thanks to Labour voters switching to Ukip that David Cameron ended up with the most unexpected of parliamentary majorities… and no excuse not to hold an in/out EU referendum. Since May of last year there has been a magnificent coming together of various Eurosceptic campaign groups, all with one end in mind: victory in the referendum on membership. As well as Ukip we have had Leave. eu, Grassroots Out and Vote Leave – the group with the most experienced referendum campaigners that became the officially designated leave campaign. To be honest, there may have been occasional occurrences of friction between different camps – we Eurosceptics can be a free-thinking and free-speaking bunch after all – but everyone kept in mind the common goal. And this week that common goal was achieved. The historic referendum win that took place on Thursday night and Friday morning. The moment when the people of Britain got to give their verdict on how their sovereignty was stolen by Edward Heath in the early 1970s.

GETTY Mr Farage helped us deliver hundreds of thousands of campaign coupons to Downing Street

The opinion polls predicted a win for the Remain side. But a lot of people had been waiting a very long time to tell the political class what they thought of the EU. And from Swansea to Swindon, from Sunderland to Sevenoaks they spoke. It turned out after all these years that they still believed in Britain and they wanted it back. And now the political establishment of Britain will have no option but to start believing in them again. Call it luck – after all, an extraordinarily large number of cards fell just right for us. But it was more than luck. We could not have done it without some clever campaigning ideas. We could not have done it without a brilliant communicator named Farage. Perhaps Lord Farage before too long, if there is any justice in the honours system. Most of all we could not have done it without you and your love for your country. It has been the greatest privilege and honour of my life to play my part. And together we have done the greatest thing that any of us will ever do.

David Cameron stands down as MP Mon, September 12, 2016 David Cameron has served as Prime Minister since 2010 and leader of the Conservative Party since 2005. We take a look at his political career in pictures. Play slideshow Getty Images 1 of 103 Prime Minister David Cameron with his wife Samantha leave 10 Downing Street for the last time after speaking to the press to visit Buckingham Palace to formally tender his resignation to the Queen on July 13, 2016