The morning after the Brexit vote, as the status-quo-shattering results were becoming clear, Hamburger Morgenpost, the daily newspaper in Hamburg, Germany, rolled out a front page featuring a large portrait of Winston Churchill and a long headline in bold letters: Etwas aufzubauen mag die langsame und mühsame Arbeit von Jahren sein. Es zu zerstören kann der gedankenlose Akt eines einzigen Tages sein.

The headline is a translation of words Churchill delivered on September 29, 1959 in a speech to the Conservative Party Association in his constituency of Woodford: “To build may be the slow and laborious task of years; to destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”