When David Cameron asked the British people to vote on whether to leave the European Union, he did his utmost to persuade us that the question was a purely economic one: would we be better off in the union or out of it? And he assembled teams of experts to warn about the economic cost if we decided to leave.

For many ordinary citizens, however, the question was not about economics at all. It was about identity and sovereignty. For such people matters were at stake that the politicians had systematically marginalised, and which were more important to them than all the economic and geopolitical arguments.

Their question was not: what will make us better off, but rather: who are we, where are we, what