For what we are about to give up, may we be truly nervous...

Malta is the smallest Member State of the European Union, just 122 square miles in area, with a population of about 400,000, on the frontier between Europe and Africa. On its own, fairly insignificant, especially now that there is peace in Europe and the North African states pose little threat. But the Maltese mostly agree that membership of the European Union is a good thing.

Our taxi driver on Thursday evening noted that, prior to joining, Maltese emigration was to the distant Commonwealth - Canada and Australia, as well as the United Kingdom. Now, young Maltese can travel to Europe in search of opportunity. And the reverse is true. Our Dutch tour guide, whose partner she described as her Maltese knight, or our Estonian waiter in Mdina, who had come with his girlfriend to gain an experience of another culture and whose parents had already moved to Malta.

For what they have is freedom, the freedom to explore new cultures, to meet new people and, perhaps, fall in love with them, to have a choice of where they might put down roots, raise a family, build a career or launch a business.

It is that freedom that the referendum vote risks taking away from our young people.

I accept that, if you are happy and settled where you are, or even unhappy and fearful for your prospects, the idea of upping sticks and moving somewhere where they speak another language, or have different customs might seem entirely irrelevant. But even if you don’t intend to use the rights you have, one wonders why you might be so relaxed about taking them away from others, especially if there is no obvious loss to you if they do use them.

It’s a bit like holding an entire generation hostage in order to quell your fears.

Of course, you have to appreciate that there is a risk of loss, and I keep hearing stories of people who voted for Brexit, knowing that they intended to retire to Cyprus, or Spain, assuming that the ending of freedom of movement was only directed into the United Kingdom - it wouldn’t affect them. It’s that good old fashioned (predominantly) English exceptionalism at play again.

My patriotism is that of someone who believes that my country is a good one, able to influence world affairs, outward-looking and confident, but it seems that it’s a form of patriotism that is out of fashion. The preferred versions being either a more fearful one, where foreigners are a threat or a burden, or a delusional one, where the world owes us not only a living, but a whole bunch of privileges that we need not reciprocate.

I fear that our nation will find out the hard way that neither is sustainable in a multilateral world where trading blocs negotiate with each other rather than with individual nations, and where specialisation allows more effective use of scarce resource.

Of course, we could always change our minds, but as I noted yesterday, the route to a second referendum is a tortuous one, and time, and the European Union’s patience, is beginning to run out...