Even today, some seven months on from the referendum, I still view with disbelief and inspiration the enormity of what happened on 23 June. Between 1 am and 4 am on that momentous Friday morning, my whole world view changed: the way I saw my country and my constituency, which voted to leave, was forever altered. Another political event so vast and so improbable is hard to find. The British people’s vote—polite, calm and astonishing—was a vote to ignore the advice of their political leaders, to defy the main parties, and to reject the megabanks and the multinationals. It was a vote that turned down the advice of the CBI, the TUC, the National Farmers Union, the broadcasters, the institutions, the experts and Barack Obama. It was against all odds.
Why did they do that? The British people wanted to re-empower themselves. They were fed up with a dirigiste EU imposing laws, policies, restrictions and costs upon them in an increasingly unaccountable, inefficient and costly way. They wanted to be free of a political union responsible for a failing single currency and rising youth unemployment.