Why did Brexit happen? What were the fatal flaws in the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union that led to its final severance on Friday 31 January 2020, which will surely prove a turning point in British and European history? It was not an act of God. It was rooted in fallen human nature, symbolised by the biblical legend of the Tower of Babel, when humanity broke down into mutually uncomprehending tribes, split one from another.

The origins of this week’s separation were there from the beginning. They were not necessarily identical to the issues that Charles de Gaulle identified when he declared in 1963 – when dramatically rejecting the UK’s first bid for membership of the European Common Market – that Britain was too different from its continental neighbours in culture and identity to ever be a compatible bedfellow. Whatever was the case then, there is more than enough cultural diversity in modern Europe to accommodate the eccentricities of the English.

De Gaulle had a point, nevertheless. From the start, Britain’s membership was much more a transaction than a commitment. In return for some loss of sovereignty – which technically was not permanent but felt like it – and some diminution in patriotic pride in its very particular identity, Britain gained the economic advantages of a close trading relationship with an ever growing number of European partners.