Meanwhile the Germans now have their hands full with their own economy. The initial growth figures for August turned out to be worse than expected; exports fell in August by 5.8 per cent on the previous month and manufacturing orders and production declined. The projections for German growth now look chaste: the IMF suggests 1.4 per cent for this year, 1.5 per cent for next, others slightly less, and the German government itself now expects growth to be 1.2 per cent this year (down from its previously estimated 1.8 per cent) and 1.3 per cent next year (down from 2 per cent).

Mrs Merkel's plans for Eurozone fiscal union therefore face economic uncertainty from the big two: the danger of France slipping into recession and the weakening outlook in Germany itself. French and German voters, along with many in the world of policy, believe the present model cannot be sustained. Everything, from the French rejection of "social dumping" to Germany's concerns about benefit tourism, suggests the current EU is on borrowed time. But it will be Britain which makes the first move.

Nigel Farage is no xenophobe but a one-time Conservative supporter with a career in the City as a metals trader and a genius, like his political heroine Margaret Thatcher, for anticipating and accelerating the change he and many in the older parties have long registered. The rapidity of his moves would have done the most daring general proud. His message is simple and has stuck: "Better off out."  

If David Cameron is to meet the message of the moment, he too should move rapidly, and recognise that disillusioned voters in the North, no less than Conservatives further south, want to hold those who make the law to account. One way he can make this happen is to adopt the strategy proposed by Martin Howe QC in his Politeia pamphlet Zero Plus: The Principles of EU Renegotiation. Zero Plus means that the government should start its renegotiation from zero, with a blank page on which it sets out — this is the "plus" — what relationship with the EU Britain wants and the bilateral arrangements needed to bring it into effect. On no account should the negotiations proceed in the other direction ("Status quo minus", so to speak) and aim to chip away at the many existing treaties, a process which would take years, amount to very little and be unlikely to win the consent of the other 27 countries.

For Howe, who specialises in EU law, the aim would not be to leave the EU, but rather to remain within it on terms which suit Britain. He emphasises, however, that all the options must both be considered and prepared for, including that of leaving the EU if Britain's aims are not met. That, says Howe, is a prerequisite for any successful negotiation. Indeed, Zero Plus negotiations might lead to a new category of membership, one based on free trade with the EU without the many layers of additional obligations added over the decades. Such membership would work well for Britain, returning the sovereignty which the people of this country increasingly demand for Westminster over Brussels.

Britain's new relationship, negotiated from zero, would be based on the free movement of goods and services, to the benefit of each member state as well as Britain. It would not allow for the unconditional free movement of people from the EU.

Above all, it would rest on the premise that no longer can ultimate powers over justice and the making of law binding on people of this country be exercised elsewhere. This would mean that voters once again were the boss.