Actually, Brexit is about Dunkirk

Or, more likely, the Battle of Britain.

I said (27 July) that Brexit wasn't like Dunkirk, though potentially a colossal economic disaster, to paraphrase Churchill.

But I have now seen the film (it's great, go watch it if you haven't). And, co-incidentally a few days earlier, a film set in France in 1940 as the Germans rolled into Paris. And it struck me that, yes, even for those of us too young to have lived through WWII, there are attitudes and beliefs which are deeply ingrained in our societies and which are relevant, at least.

In the film about German occupied France there were scenes of refugees, in that case walking many miles from Paris to try to find safety having left everything behind. For those old enough to have experienced it - and their children who have heard them talk about it - the scenes of migrants tramping through Europe in recent times must have been like an echo of a nightmare they thought would never return.

I entirely understand the view of the Germans and French that led to the founding of the Common Market and then EU, that they must ensure politically that those events can never recur. It is in the deepest part of their values.

The British experience was different. Britain stood alone and came so close to losing its proud independence. Without the British standing firm - and crucially engaging the Americans without whom Europe would not be free - the modern Europe would not exist. Or, if it did, it would have been created much later in a very different way.

We share much of the same value set with the Germans, French and other continental Europeans. But most of us have never shared their prescription for the means to achieve it, i.e. a European superstate.

I find it hard to accept my own conclusion that these historic events have anything to do with forming our views of how to ensure a safe and prosperous future for us all in the continent of Europe. Surely it's about - well, what? A strong trading block, immigration, loss of sovereignty, freedom of movement and so on?

But feelings and emotions are relevant as well. The continental Europeans have decided long ago the way ahead is to merge. We survived alone and then played a key role in enabling them to have the luxury of taking those decisions.

We have never ploughed the same furrow. We don't have the same shared experience. I can't help feeling, whether I like it or not, that's a key part of why we feel we don't belong in the federal European state. Even though it's ancient history.

We are better getting out of their way and letting them form the federal state that we never voted for and, I believe, a majority of Brits instinctively don't want to belong to.

In 1975 we were sold a "common market". But even in 2016 the Remain campaign was fought on the basis of the status quo. Remainers are wont to say that the Leave option was vague and unspecified and people didn't know what they were voting for. A valid point, but what about the silence of the Remain campaign on the EU's direction of travel? I guess we all knew this was dissembling on a grand scale. The Leave campaign offered nothing concrete beyond the "bring back control" mantra and the obviously contentious, even at the time, "£350M a week for the NHS". But the Remain campaign, in its deliberate silence about the future of the EU, was equally morally bankrupt. There was, deliberately, no discussion at all about what the future "Europe" might look like, what influence we would have over it, what potential developments we could veto or have to accept. I contend that the choices were both unspecified, admittedly perhaps unknowable. No wonder many people voted on feeling and instinct.

It is often suggested that Leavers (I wasn't one) voted that way because they didn't like immigration or even because they were racist (a totally out of order accusation). And we hear the refrain "people didn't vote to make themselves poorer". I believe many people voted Leave because they don't feel they belong in what Europe wants to become. They feel separate.

They are allowed to feel that. And it means they won't easily change their minds. It's why we haven't seen much "buyer's remorse" from leave voters. And aren't likely to either.