The world is now three years into the vaunted revival of the nation state. As you can see, citizens are setting aside their differences and embracing under the flag. Other loyalties they might feel — to their politics, to the global commons — have succumbed to the one true form of human belonging. “Oh, get a room,” you sigh, as they frolic and high-five. Just look at the watertight cohesion of the US. Just look at the togetherness of the UK.

If the tone here is farcical, then so, looking back, was the triumphalism of 2016. Remember, nationalists did not just say that nation states should recover formal powers from global entities. That would be an entirely respectable statement of preference. They said the nation state is the ultimate locus of people’s identity. Hence the huge vote for Donald Trump as US president and that other nationalist proposition, Brexit.

Globalists have been asked to do a lot of self-examination since then. Nationalists will forgive me if I ask them to return the favour. It is just that lots of citizens turn out to be at least as attached to their political tribe as to their nation. They put country first, as long as it is governed on their terms. This was true before 2016 but the schism has deepened ever since.