Why did the British vote to leave, and what lessons are to be learned?
The meaning of Brexit and its enduring impact on British politics, as evidenced by the pending departure of Keir Starmer, was its profoundly constitutional character.
The vote asserted a central principle in British politics: that institutions of authority and policy should be representative of the public and subject to accountability through democratic elections.
The question of how politics is constituted – who decides – is still the wider European question posed by that fateful referendum on 23 June, 2016 and the rise of populism.
As the results of the British referendum became clear in the early hours of 24 June, an electrical storm raged over Brussels while a giant thundercloud, illuminated by lightning, loomed above the Berlaymont – an augury of the political turmoil ahead.
