It’s over. If Brexit happens at all – and for the first time I’m beginning to think it won’t – it will be on terms that keep the worst aspects of EU membership. Britain will be humbled in the eyes of the world, having tried to recover its independence and been faced down. The largest popular vote in our history will be disregarded, and the nation that exported representative government exposed as an oligarchy. Plus – and I know this sounds almost trivial next to those calamities, but it matters to me – the Conservative Party might never recover.