We stood by and watched this happen in Africa, South-East Asia and (to an extent) in India. The empires withdrew, leaving democracies behind them, and chaos, civil war and dictatorship followed. We shook our heads and tut-tutted and allowed ourselves the odd faintly-racist comment -all while paying billions in aid that either went into corrupt politicians' pockets or came back to us via arms sales to dictators.

The Russian Empire collapsed. There were ethnic conflicts. The Germans tried to drag and bully half ot Eastrn Europe into the EU (lebensraum, anyone?). Now recently-established demcracies are tumbling into authoritarianism, civil conflict, dictatorship and military aggression. But because this is in Europe, we're doing our nuts about it!

We dropped the ball. We ignored history. We didn't think white folk would behave the way black and brown people have. But these people have forgotten how to govern themselves. Some never knew, having always been imperial possesions or at best client states. They were always going to balls it up and Western Europe did nothing to help. The EU now is just the table at which France and Germany are once again arm-wrestling for dominance.

We need to stay out of it. All of it. Concentrate trade on Canada, Australasia, Japan and as much of the Commonwealth as are still talking to us, and leave the rest alone.