To its natural Project Hope

allied ourselves with the Dutch to defeat the threat to Britain posed by Philip II of Spain in the 1580s, then the Dutch, Germans and Portuguese to defeat Louis XIV of France in the War of the Spanish Succession, then with the Austrians, Germans, Spanish and Portuguese to defeat Napoleon, then the French, Italians, Americans, Belgians, Romanians, Portuguese and Greeks to defeat Kaiser Wilhelm II in the Great War, and lastly the Free French, Poles, Belgians, Dutch, Americans, Norwegians and many others to defeat Adolf Hitler in the Second World War.

Today, every single one of those countries is our ally within Nato. None of that is going to change, further exploding the Remainers’ myth that there are any security implications to the step we are taking. Staying true to the old alliances that were described in “divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles”, and the blood that was shed in the wars mentioned above, Britain will be continuing her long historical tradition of maintaining the widest possible coalitions and alliances, while exhibiting no Little Englander tendencies such as the more historically illiterate Remainers suggest.

As we reconnect after today with our 440 years of sovereign independence, the immediate past 46 years of EU membership will seem more and more like a strange and rather sad aberration in our history, a moment when we lost our selfconfidence in the early Seventies due to a lack of leadership – Edward Heath, Harold Wilson and Jeremy Thorpe were the three party leaders in 1973, for God’s sake! – along with a sense of losing an empire and not finding a role.

The Seventies were a dreadful time for Britain, with the Irish Troubles, oil prices quadrupling, miners’ strikes, a three-day week, and rising unemployment. Small wonder that the nation lost a belief in our “capacity to guide and govern”, and instead folded our fate into that of the other countries of the European Economic Community, which at the time few saw had any secret ambition to destroy British legislative autonomy. One of the few who did have that clearness of vision,

Enoch Powell, had already marginalised himself politically by his remarks about mass immigration.

When examination questions are set about Brexit 100 years from now, enough time will have elapsed for history pupils to see that the 1973-2020 period was a weird moment of doubt and weakness in Britain, not at all indicative of the true nation as she really is.

By contrast, they will recognise a proud, successful, self-governing nation state from 1533 to 1973, and then again from 2020 onwards. Even during the Dark Ages of Brussels’ hegemony over Britain, however, there was a short period of pride, resistance and success throughout the whole of the Eighties, proving that the spark of British self-confidence was not dead.

Looking at our future relations with Europe from today onwards, another useful template has been given to us by Winston Churchill.

In November 1951, the newly re-elected prime minister told his Cabinet that the British attitude towards economic integration, “resembles that which we adopt about the European Army. We help, we dedicate, we play a part, but we are not merged with and do not forfeit our insular or Commonwealth character. It is only when plans for uniting Europe take a federal form that we ourselves cannot take part, because we cannot subordinate ourselves or the control of British policy to federal authorities.”

Boris Johnson, who always politely refers to “our European friends and allies”, whatever they are saying about him and however they are treating him, is in a perfect position to follow Churchill’s policy of helping and dedicating and playing a part, but resolutely doing nothing that subordinates or compromises our hard-won independence. A glorious new phase of British history has just begun. Andrew Roberts is the author of ‘Leadership in War’ published by Penguin.

Chopper’s Brexit Podcast

Listen to Christopher Hope and his guests analyse the latest twists and turns telegraph.co.uk/ brexit-podcast