Brexit's my fault: How the word I invented could be an epitaph for the nation's decline

Peter Wilding, the chairman of British Influence, invented the word Brexit.

He claims he is "neither a 'phile' nor a 'phobe', just a realist campaigning for British Influence in Europe".

Here, Mr Wilding explains the origins of Brexit, which he describes as a "sad word," and why he's not pleased it caught on.

Have you ever won a prize you didn't want?

On the day I handed in my notice as Europe Director for BSkyB to fight for Britain to take back control of Europe through my think-tank, British Influence, I wrote an article saying:

"Unless a clear view is pushed that Britain must lead in Europe at the very least to achieve the completion of the single market then the portmanteau for Greek euro exit might be followed by another sad word, Brexit."

Then I forgot it. Until one day just after the referendum, the Oxford English Dictionary called me and said that, hey, Brexit is your word, it's the 2016 word of the year, congratulations, you must be thrilled?

No. Not least because you can imagine being the leading Remainer before the referendum and gifting the Leavers their catchy trigger to unleash the demons that followed!

But having invented the word, I can now reveal the hopeless mistakes by arrogant people made on the way which have led us to this place. My own personal J'accuse is heartfelt. Because Brexit was a chronicle of a death foretold. The fault, not of the lions who are the British people, but of the donkeys who led them.

First in the stocks go our political leaders. I knew that the key to the Brexit war was who won the battle over patriotism.

Would Farage and his little Englanders destroy Britain's historic mission as a leading shaper of modern Europe? From William Pitt who sought "a treaty to which all parties of Europe should bind themselves to protect and support each other," to Churchill's support of a united Europe, Britain's statesmen had always sought to lead not leave their continent.

In my lifetime, our country brilliantly united Europe - economically through the single market and politically through the post-cold war enlargement that bonded the continent under one polity for the first time since the days of Rome.

Though Europe sought our leadership, our recent leaders failed them. And us. Urging Cameron to assume Churchill's mantle, I showed him our polling which revealed that 61% of Brits craved their country to lead in Europe.

They wanted a PM with vision, playing beautiful, attacking continental football rather than always cowering defensively in the penalty box. Cameron shrugged.

"It's all about tactics not strategy," he told me and walked out of the cabinet room, whistling. Both he, and his MPs, were staggeringly careless about Britain's fragile power, and hopelessly ignorant about how to influence our real Empire 2.0, the EU.

Still today, MPs text me asking "what is the single market, what is the customs union?" Little wonder then, that with no nouse at the top, 65% of the people believed that Britain had no influence, no friends, no idea. Here was how Brexit, as a narcissistic victim syndrome ignited by charlatan nostalgists, was born. Because top politicians couldn't be bothered to lead.

Second in the stocks go the business leaders. For them all that mattered was money. Some, allied with Number 10, fell into the Oscar Wilde trap. They were cynics who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Will Straw, the benighted director of the Stronger In campaign, reduced his historic task - in a speech to his staff - to a message of "economics, economics, economics".

Others, heads of international businesses, decadently scarpered away from the most epic political question of the age because their wealth and their companies could always relocate if things went wrong.

Globalisation had sucked patriotism from the top. By doing so, its insouciant leaders fed nationalism to the bottom. Millions, struggling to make sense of a changing world, knew that they couldn't be bothered to understand.

For me, this was a shock. Britain, over the last 30 years, had a Lazarus-like return from the 1970s deadzone. A golden age where, militarily, politically, culturally and economically, an old country had renewed itself culminating in the ultimate accolade of smart power - the 2012 Olympics.

But history goes in cycles. Big bang ended in the big crash, the Falklands in Iraq, Thatcher with May. Empires in history fall rapidly after their height and Brexit, another 2012 creation coined when Britain felt fresh and united, is now is a byword for self-inflicted, avoidable harm, like Versailles for Germany or Vichy for France.

But the darkest hour is always before dawn. If the Brexit revolution can be stopped before it devours the country itself - before Scotland and Northern Ireland tire of this English public schoolboy caper - then maybe leaders will emerge so that Britain can lead again in Europe and the world to defend our threatened principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

If we do, we may, as Churchill said "hold the key to opening a safe and happy future and gain for ourselves gratitude and fame". If we do not, my word will sadly be an epitaph for a nation's decline and possible fall.

:: Peter Wilding is the author of the bestselling book What Next: Britain's future in Europe. Follow him at @eurorealist on twitter and at www.influencegroup.org.uk.