While almost every European country has undergone something like a revolution, with new parties and movements, over the years, English voters have remained loyal to two parties.
In one of the great ambushes of history, British negotiators found that membership would involve an invasion of our waters by foreign fishermen, which meant years of disaster.
Fanatics never give up. They are so convinced that they are right and good, and that everyone else is wrong and bad, that a mere Supreme Court ruling against them barely gives them pause.
It was once a matter of national pride that our police, unlike those of Europe and North America, were unarmed and enforced law and order by persuasion and tact.
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Our national friendship with the US will certainly not be sustained by the sort of performance put up by Sir Keir Starmer in Washington last week, or by the way he was treated in the Oval Office.