And it cuts both ways, Left and Right. For a long time now the liberal establishment – based in London, Brighton and a few university towns – has drawn in its mind a picture of working-class populism that is coloured by contempt. You may recall that infamous Matthew Parris article about the Clacton by-election that suggested this faded seaside town was a living morgue – populated by Nazis in wheelchairs. Well, an article by a Vice journalist on the premier of the Brexit movie revisits the stereotypes well. Sam Kriss describes eurosceptics as:

“the bitter middle-aged, someone perched on the edge of civilisation in some declining seaside town where they collect snowglobes and prejudices and slowly crumble, blaming every problem they see on the feckless foreigners.”

The article is full of contradictions, as prejudices generally are. Brexiteers are mouth-breathers from the back-of-beyond and yet, somehow, also “chinless squawkers” from the “upper-classes”. How can they be both tastelessly poor and disgustingly rich? The journalist, who has a fine turn of phrase, describes: “potato-headed men with their scabbed, port-stained faces and their leathery wives, draped generously in tan cloth and ancestral privilege.” I recognise such figures very well: bores and snobs who compare their wives to horses and their children to insolent puppies. But they are not the massed ranks of the eurosceptics. Polls suggest that between 35 and 45 per cent of the public are thinking of voting Out. Can Britain really contain that many peers-of-the-realm? In which case perhaps it really is time for an elected chamber.