The unaudited Athelney Trust NAV inched ahead in a remarkably quiet September by 1 per cent to 243.6, still shy of the 31 December 2015 figure of 245.

Brexit means Brexit is as concise as it is circular but it is becoming clearer by the day that what Mrs May means is a Hard Brexit, which represents a departure not only from the EU but also from the customs union and the single market. The UK should, however, end up with a free-trade arrangement that covers goods and some business services and liberal travel arrangements. But the passporting of UK-based financial institutions would end and the City of London would cease to be Europe’s unrivalled financial capital. Furthermore, the UK and EU would impose controls on their nationals’ ability to work in one another’s economies. This is not the outcome that many desire: the Japanese, for instance, have expressed their dismay at the referendum result and its likely consequences. Should the UK leave the customs union, then the rules of origin would apply to exports from the UK to the EU. This bureaucratic procedure would be needed to prove that our exports really were ours and not from, say, North Korea. This would put our exporters at a disadvantage to their EU competitors. The aim of Hard Brexit, therefore, must be to get to our ultimate destination with the minimum of damage to both sides so we need a trade pact with the EU, an interim agreement to cover the period between exit and the longer-term deal, apply to the World Trade Organisation as a full member, new arrangements with the 55 or so other countries that now have a pact with the EU and, presumably, with the US and China and, finally, UK-EU ties in foreign and defence policy, police and judicial co-operation and counter-terrorism.

Believe me, this is all going to take years and years. The UK has chosen a largely illusory freedom and we must all face up to the fact that the country will be poorer for this grim mistake.