Now is not a good time to be making enemies

I always thought leaving the EU would be a cause for celebration, but the sight of Donald Tusk accepting the Article 50 letter this week just made me feel a bit sad, and that we had let down our friends and neighbours.

One of the things Brexit has done is made me realise how European I feel, and I’m sure I’m not alone. I always found Vote Leave’s whole Commonwealth shtick a bit disingenuous, because we have far more in common with the Dutch and the Germans than with most non-European countries, even those we did forcibly make part of our empire against their will.

Sure, the Asian economy is growing but India accounts for a tiny percentage of our trade compared with Europe, and if relaxed migration rules are the price we pay for more, then exchanging free movement with continental Europe for a country with 250m below the poverty line is just moronic.

But one of the results of the vote might be that Britons become better Europeans; this is not exactly an unintended consequence, as Daniel Hannan has argued the point before, but it’s still somewhat counter-intuitive. Contrary to the thesis that Brexit has made the country a backwards-looking cesspit of hate, polls