Ten years ago, I was on a business trip in Brussels on the day of the Brexit referendum. Voting was already underway across the Channel, but in the European Quarter, the mood was almost serene. Journalists kept asking EU officials about Brexit, and the officials waved the questions away with jokes, as though the whole thing was a theatrical inconvenience rather than a potential political earthquake.

In private conversations, I asked people the same question: if you had to place a bet, what would you choose? Everyone said ‘Remain’. In Britain itself, almost 13 million voters didn’t turn out at all, apparently unable to imagine the scale of what was coming.

We were all naive. Trump hadn’t yet been elected in the United States, the Covid disaster hadn’t yet rolled across the world, and the year 2022 hadn’t arrived yet.