andrew liddle

In a remarkable turn of events, Scotland just put England out of Europe.

No, no – don’t choke on your warm lager. This was not football.

It was politics – about the only field where England and Scotland can meet without the outcome contravening some kind of international law.

And, make no mistake, it was a clash between Boris’s England and Nicola’s Scotland.

Of course, there were others on the stage apart from the two heavyweights.

Amber Rudd? The closest the Energy Secretary has come to being a household name was a brief marriage to food critic A.A. Gill.

Andrea Leadsom? So obscure that at one point even the presenter forgot her name.

Oh, and there were the other two. That one that now scowls beside Jeremy Corbyn, and the one that used to scowl behind Gordon Brown.

Nicola – as she is inevitably known south of the border – is no stranger to such battles.

Her performance was almost a verbatim re-enactment of the glorious 2015 election debate, where she was viewed as the outright winner and champion of anti-austerity politics.

For better or worse, in the battle of north versus south, Boris had a more nuanced handle on exactly what his supporters wanted to hear – and how to sway those on the fence.

But the truth is – as a pro-European in a UK referendum debate on a panel with nobodies – it was Nicola’s job to make the case for all of Britain.

In that, she failed – and, at the very least, helped England crash out of Europe.