But is it worth all the trouble? That was the question about the whole upheaval of Brexit (the decision to go a separate way from the European Union) put to Britain's chief finance minister, Philip Hammond, in a recent interview.
His answer was that the British people had decided on withdrawal in a referendum and that was what the government was therefore doing. It was, he implied, "the will of the people" and that was that.
Unfortunately, this answer falls well short of what is required on two counts. The first — a lesser but not unimportant point — is that it is not "the British people" who have decided, it is a majority of the British people, which is a very different thing .