Democracy is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union, except when it throws up a result that jars with its agenda. The Brussels elite rarely lose much sleep over these things. They have three ways of coping when the will of the people turns against them.

The simplest option they have is to ensure the people are asked to consider the question again, as the Irish had to do on the Lisbon Treaty, in the hope they pick their preferred answer.

The next option is to shrug off the result, an attitude Jean-Claude Juncker displayed when he famously declared that if the French approved the Lisbon Treaty, “we will say ‘on we go’, and if it’s a No we will say ‘we continue’”. In Brussels, the Project has to come first.

The final option is the most aggressive, but can yield results: bully and patronise the errant nation into submission.

The Greek people experienced this after they voted in 2015 to reject the bailout conditions on offer from the European Commission. President Juncker reacted peevishly to the result, declaring that he felt “betrayed” by Greece and dismissing the result as an “irrelevant circus”.

“We are told we must respect the Greek people’s vote,” he told MEPs. “The people of Greece have spoken and I would like to understand what they have said.” His huffiness was rewarded a few weeks later after the Greek Government agreed to draconian measures as part of its bailout package.