All the betrayal, cynicism and manipulation by which the political class has controlled and intimidated the population of Britain over the past half-century have finally acquired a single evocative defining term: Second Referendum.

In that infamous demand made by the ruling oligarchy resides all the overweening sense of entitlement and expectation of compliance that has for decades sustained those who have ruled us for too long. The new establishment which partly replaced the old order in the 1960s moved its life-support system offshore: it relies on Brussels to provide a framework to support its domestic authority.