In the end, Northern Ireland will be the price Britain pays for Brexit

Johnson has moved quite a distance towards what has long been the most elegant and obvious solution: running the customs border down the Irish Sea

That scandalous Brexiteer image saying “we” wouldn’t be “pushed around” by Angela Merkel may be history now. The very idea, though, that anyone could think it acceptable to circulate it at all exposes something about us that our neighbours on the continent have long known: the British – and especially the English – historical experience and self-image is very different in many ways from theirs. And our view of the 20th century’s two world wars, especially the second, is a particular case in point.

There was no enemy occupation (except of the Channel Islands, though we tend to gloss over that rather quickly). And there was no defeat (unless you count the losses of Hong Kong, Singapore and Burma, which we prefer not to mention). And the retreat from Dunkirk, meanwhile, has been recast as just another glorious chapter in our island story.

Our experience of making peace was different, too. Safely girded by the sea, we did not need to contemplate the sort of compromises required of those countries with shifting land borders and more fluid populations. Yes, there was the matter of Ireland and Northern Ireland, but, again, that was different, wasn’t it?