This might be a moment to stop and consider why it was that from the very beginning Britain was always the outsider inside the Common Market, then the EEC and finally the EU.
It is an island, yes, but that cannot be all. One of the reasons British psychology is different is that it is a nation which has evolved gradually over 1500 years since the departure of the Romans without a single seismic event other than the invasion of the Normans. Since then the crown has passed, not always without a fight, sometimes with rather tenuous links to the claim, from one to another, as the system of government has evolved from absolute monarchy to a democracy using the structures and powers of monarchy as if owned by parliament, which some constitutional authorities would argue they are. There is no formal constitution, it is tweaked and tinkered with all the time, often without any formal approval. The outcome is a nation in a state of continuous and quiet evolution which is at once traditional and modern, advanced and backward, adventurous and pragmatic. It is unique.
Every other nation in Europe has a written constitution and has been through periodic occupations, triumphs and disasters, changes in structures, boundaries and governance, together engaged in a common story into which Britain has often been called to take a part, but has never truly shared. While France is on its Fifth Republic since the French Revolution and Germany, only a single country since the 1870s, has fallen and risen three times, Britain has been crowning its Kings and Queens in the same Abbey since the Norman conquest. One was a Mr Silly and had his head cut off, but the country soon tired of the republic idea, put his son back on the throne and carried on as if nothing had happened.
Yet as it meanders its way through the meadows of history like a lazy river in no hurry, Britain has managed to become the power behind the political consequences of the Reformation, to inaugurate and drive the industrial revolution, build the largest empire the world had ever seen spanning the globe upon which the sun never set, give it up with barely a murmur and very little bloodshed, put together the coalition of powers which defeated Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler, split the atom before anybody else and loads of other stuff besides. It has now enshrined in law one of the most advanced interpretations of equality of sexes, genders religions, cultures, orientations, rights and customs to be found anywhere, in which the welfare of the individual can legally trump the priorities of the State.
Interesting when you think about it. We may be fools to leave the EU, but history tells us without any doubt, they will be even bigger fools to let us go.