Of course, even as we consider how else we can play our part in upholding progress and defending civilisation, whether that is through fighting environmental degradation, countering Islamist terrorism, ensuring the next generation have access to the best that has been thought and written or ensuring a free market economy is governed by virtue and restraint, these questions of continental, indeed global, importance are, increasingly, best answered by strengthening nation states.

In that sense, Douglas Murray’s obituary for Europe may have been rendered premature by Britain’s departure from the European Union. By being true to our traditions we were proclaiming our faith in the values that had generated so much progress on our continent in the past.

Democracy originally took root in Greek soil centuries ago. And among the citizens of the original democratic city state, Athens, a culture of what was called rivalrous emulation evolved. Men sought to emulate, and then exceed, the qualities and virtues of those thought the best of their time. Democracy was not about conformity or levelling down. It was about openness, experimentation, the pursuit of excellence, the reining in of those who do wrong and the ambition to match or even overtake, those who had achieved great things for their shared homeland. And just as the citizens of Athens believed in rivalrous emulation among themselves so it became the practice between city states, as each sought to exceed the other in cultural distinction, courage in beating back invasions from tyrannical neighbours and the energy with which civilisation was spread.

As with those city states in ancient times, so it has been between nation states in modern times when Europe has been at its best. It has been from national parliaments and within national traditions, as proclaimers of the virtues of liberal nation states,  that Europe’s generators of progress have sprung, the de Gaulles and Erhards, Adenauers and Havels, Zolas and Mazzinis, Kossuths and Herzls, Verdis and Sibeliuses.

That is why I believe that Europe’s revival, as a generator of progress, a force for free trade and free expression, a defender of democracy and an advocate for emancipation is at hand, thanks to the decision made by the British people last year and which, I hope, will be reinforced by this general election. It is through restoring confidence in our distinctive traditions that we will be able to  enhance the dignity of all.