Before the vote last night I emailed my Tory constituency MP and highlighted the lack of “moral clarity” that a vote against the EU referendum represented. I told her that denying the people a vote on how decisions are made about their lives represented the most fundamental attack on liberty that you could choose to undertake and that voting down this motion represented a “violation of volition on a massive scale”. I doubt many readers have trouble decoding that allusion, and indeed rebellion on an impressive scale is what happened. Cameron has been left standing at the end if this battle but as MP David Nuttal said to City AM, he has not won the war. Far from it.

In fact this will put pressure on Cameron to appease his eurosceptic faction so that they don’t, as Allister Heath predicts, become an anti-Cameron faction. Progress (or regression?) on Europe is dear to the hearts of this faction and they won’t give in lightly. Apparently he’s already repeated that he wants to repatriate powers, which is a step in the right direction. Maybe he’ll finally get on with it.