One year from today, the United Kingdom will be a fortnight into its journey on the outside of the European Union it has spurned. On 29 March, it will cast itself adrift for good at 11:00 p.m. – London time, naturally – its moorings on the continent to be permanently consigned to the bad memories drawer. There is no reason to doubt this inevitable ‘liberation’of a country with a splendid history which, when it threw in its lot with that of the continent in the first place, was only...