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To explore this idea, let’s compare the two cultures from a legal standpoint. In this regard, the EU is again an experiment in hyper-rationalism: the unyielding ‘four freedoms’ of capital, people, goods, and services are not based on a relativistic assessment of the different needs and cultures of each state, but an abstract, philosophical principle. In addition, the great constitutional documents of France and the US, both of which arose from the Enlightenment tradition, declare abstract principles rather than traditional practices. On the other hand, Lord Chancellors (responsible for the effecting running of the British courts) of the past have pointed out that the law in the UK is utterly, brilliantly, illogical. The miscellaneous body of Common Law, which makes up the British Constitution, is composed of rulings of which none are ‘higher’ or universal. Each case decides only what it decides: precedent is not principle.

In this regard, British and Chinese political culture are like long-lost brothers. Confucius stayed well away from three afflictions, which from the Jacobins to the Soviets have been the source of some of the greatest human tragedies. Firstly, he decried ‘theory-making’, thinking men who were enslaved to harsh and self-imposed principles to be no more imaginative than ‘stones’. One of the most memorable incidents of The Analects is when Confucius reprimands a disciple for trying to determine a formula for the cause and effect of human behaviour. A quick glance at Marx’s Grundrisse can show us how the Enlightenment is nothing if not the reduction of history’s complexities to a simple formula.  Secondly, Confucius taught that no rule should be ‘immutable’: ‘a(chǎn) good man is not slavish to a path others have trodden’. This fits with the famously supple nature of the British constitution, which Tocqueville credited for the lack of a French Revolution event in Britain. Thirdly, Confucius claimed that nothing should be ‘beyond doubt’. These three positions remind us of what Chinese and British political culture share in the face of hostile universalism.

The United Kingdom and the People’s Republic of China both have a history of ideas that is strikingly similar in their shared aversion to the dogmatic fixation on abstract principles embodied in the European project. For refusing to embrace EU federalism, the UK is smeared for ‘living in the past’. This cannot be denied. Unusually, the referendum gave the opportunity to vote not to join a political project, but leave one. As a result, the constitutional clock was turned back to 1973. Indeed, most of the buzzphrases used by Brexiteers - ‘we want our country back’, ‘loss of sovereignty’, ‘take back control’ - all alluded to this. But what is wrong with the past? It is where our identities - personal, national, or otherwise - are based. And it is our biases, prejudices, and hopes which make up our identity - not some unsympathetic, faceless dictator called Reason. When the breakdown of the EU finally, inevitably comes, you can be sure they will blame anyone, anything - the parochial British, the backward Southern states, even suffering refugees - than notice that their ideology is flawed, and Reason holds them prisoner.

Given China’s similar relationship with history, the PRC should take notice of the UK”s treatment. However, any defence of Britain would currently be inadvisable. Indeed, China is keeping its head down in the best tradition of Deng Xiaoping. Us Brits cannot blame them for this - the EU is a larger market. However, there will come a point when China’s super-heavyweight standing in the world compels it to put short-term pragmatism aside and assert its values in a long-term strategy against those, like the EU, who look to destroy the varied traditions and cultures of the world in favour of a single, global civilisation.

When asked whether he could imagine an outcome in which the UK stays a part of the EU (even after having voted to do the opposite), Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, channelled John Lennon. With that quirky wit for which career bureaucrats are famous, Tusk said that the EU was “built on dreams that seemed impossible to achieve, so who knows? You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one”.

With an understanding of the political philosophy underpinning the EU, Tusk’s comments strike us less as an ill-conceived tease, and more like a Freudian slip revealing how he appears to share the sinister agenda (“imagine there’s [sic] no countries… and no religion too”) of the third most talented Beatle. Like Lennon, Tusk wants the world to “l(fā)ive as one” - under one unforgiving morality in what the EU calls ‘ever-closer union’. This undermines cultural integrity and ignores history. Europe should confront and scrutinise its history - but under no circumstances forget it. Thus far, the EU has shown itself to be the centrist heir to the brutal regimes of the last 250 years that aimed to do just that. But perhaps the saddest part of this story is that in addition to that which which the European Union has already taken from the United Kingdom - jobs, freedom, sovereignty, and democracy - we must now add The Beatles.