My friends, I must report that there are at least some people who are woefully underestimating this country. They think Brexit isn’t going to happen. There are some media observers – in this country and around the world – who think we are going to bottle it.

I detect scepticism about whether we have the stamina, the guts, the persistence to pull it off. They think that the Brexit Bill will get lost in a House of Commons crevasse or buried in some interminable Jarndyce and Jarndyce legal proceedings. They think that we will simply despair of finding the way out of the EU and sit down on the floor and cry – like some toddler lost in the maze at Hampton Court.

Well, in so far as they doubt our resolve, I believe they are wrong; and I am here to tell you that this country will succeed in our new national enterprise, and will succeed mightily.

Those 17.4 million people – they weren’t fools, you know. They weren’t stupid. They weren’t as bad as some would have you believe. They were right; and even if you think they were wrong, I hope you agree that it is our duty, as democrats, to fulfil the mandate they gave us.