There is a favourite question at a Conservative Party candidate selection meeting which asks who the candidate admires in politics.

My answer was always Mikhail Gorbachev and F W de Klerk. Why? Because I believe they recognised when the system in which they had come of political age had served its time and that trying to hang on to it was going to be more damaging in the long term to the people they served than accepting a new future. At first, the people around them are horrified because hanging on to one’s beliefs is much simpler than accepting change. But in the end change wins.

And so it is with the UK’s relationship with the EU. I voted Remain in 2016 and don’t regret it. But I wasn’t on the winning side. I’ve spent the last 31 months listening to why so many people voted for change. And having watched the UK’s exit negotiations over that time, and having served as EU Budget Minister in the Treasury, my view is that we would, at some point, due to our geography, our history and our wider relationships with the world, have reached a position where the UK and the EU were bound to see their futures very differently.