Well, I didn’t expect it. Like most people, I think, I had David Cameron down as electable Mr Bland, a wax-work dummy from Madame Tussauds carefully placed in the leadership of the Conservative Party to follow the internationalist, neoliberal script. And perhaps he would have done so, turning his back on national interest as every other British Prime Minister has, finally, over the last thirty-five years. But, it seems, Sarko and his mandarins, possessed as they are of a vision for Europe on a Napoleonic scale and a horrible suspicion that Anglo-Saxon skulduggery is undermining it, made it impossible for him, wearing the colours of Arch-Defender of Financial Services, to sign on fiscal Europe’s bottom line.

Now we have a situation where seventeen eurozone states and nine EU member but non-eurozone states are going to make lovebird sounds to another, while totally ignoring the will of their respective peoples. One other state is, as they say, “isolated”, though it is a rather smug and relieved isolation at the moment. If Cameron calls a snap election now, or if the LibDems collapse the coalition (which they can’t, of course), he would scoot home. Even with all the austerity.

But ... what does it all mean from a nationalist perspective? Has anything changed for us? Well, two things for starters.

First, the definition of a Eurosceptic has been expanded. Cameron’s veto has made the beast mainstream. Meanwhile, the ante has been vertiginously upped for supporters of joining the Euro. The old argument about being at “the heart of Europe” to protect our interests is defunct – we are not going to be at the heart of Europe ever again. Now Europhiles have to argue that agreeing to German oversight of UK taxation and spending policy and practise would be in the national interest.

Cameron’s veto will have an immediate effect on UKIP and on British nationalism, forcing a focus on the perfect nonsense of belonging to a club of 27 which 26 have left, and the half-life Britain will now increasingly inherit as the 26 develop their union. The argument for independence therefore becomes one of re-definition and regularisation. It has lost much of its power.

Second, notwithstanding our signature to the existing EU treaties (including Lisbon which effectively abolishes the nation state) the intergovernmental process of de-sovereignisation has come to a screeching halt for Britain. The sole remaining interests for the British government in the EU are the preservation of (i) the Single Market and (ii) the unregulated status of the City of London. The project has now become a neoliberal one, not an internationalist one, and that will require a more nuanced critique from nationalists.

In this respect globalisation presents a particular challenge. It continues to exercise its baleful influence upon us and to be fully supported by the political mainstream. But it is nebulous, and the power of corporations does not pack the same punch as a political target as the power of Brussels.

A lot has changed today. We do not yet know how all the pieces will fall finally. But nationalism didn’t make much impact when the ideological times were good. They just got tougher, and I am none too confident that we can rise to the challenge.