The Brexit result last month came as a surprise even to the leaders of the Leave campaign. UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage not once but twice conceded a narrow defeat on election night. And pro-Leave Conservative Boris Johnson (who had to scurry past booing protesters outside his house the morning after the vote) looked terribly uncomfortable and conciliatory in the days after his alleged moment of triumph and has since dropped his bid to be prime minister.

Few leading pro-Brexit campaigners appear at all keen to carry out the mandate they have received, and not simply because of how difficult, complicated, and risky the negotiated exit from the European Union is likely to be in technical terms alone.

Within the Left’s dominant pro-Remain elements, the shock has quickly turned to dystopian visions of impending fascism and angry denunciations of backward, racist, and frighteningly non-cosmopolitan older working-class voters who have “stolen” the future of the country’s youth (who were strongly pro-Remain yet turned out in low numbers).