I have recently been clinging on to the idea that, in four or five years, we will have all realised what a huge mistake we made two weeks ago and will be begging to rejoin the EU. Yet, that’s a false hope, isn’t it? In five years, society will have changed. Society will have become used to the supposed freedoms being outside the eu will bring us: the freedom to exploit the vulnerable; the freedom to be greedy; the freedom to care only about yourself. By that time, most people will probably be doing okay and won’t want to go back to a more regulated system, leaving those of us who value fairness and cooperation, and who see the bigger picture, lamenting what could have been and despairing at the rise in inequality.