Britain is on its way out of the European Union after a spectacular display of democracy – which may never have come to be without a drunken brawl in the House of Commons four years ago.
It sounds absurd, but bear with me. The fight was nothing to do with Europe – barely even politics – but has had ramifications nobody involved could imagine.
The unwitting actions of then-Labour MP Eric Joyce transformed not only his own life, but the future of his party, his country, and, ultimately, the whole world.
Joyce’s momentous clash – with Stuart Andrew MP and several others – got him slung out of Labour and effectively put an end to his parliamentary career.
But it was what followed that changed the violent encounter in Parliament’s Strangers’ Bar from forgettable gossip to a footnote in history.
After Joyce was removed from Labour, his safe seat in Falkirk, Fife, which he would otherwise have defended at the next election, needed filling.
That process sparked a row between cronies of the Unite trade union and the wider Labour movement. Critics argued that the seat had been stitched up for Karie Murphy by officials of Unite – a union with substantial formal control over Labour, and a major source of donations.
The dispute – known in the press as the Falkirk Selection Scandal – rumbled on for months, and ended in a dramatic reshuffle of Labour rules by a desperate Ed Miliband, then leader of the Labour Party.
In order to stem accusations of being in bed with the unions, Miliband re-drew internal rules for the party, including, crucially, axing the unions’ privileged role in choosing Labour leaders.
Instead, Miliband brought in a system where leaders were chosen by a “one member-one vote” poll of the entire Labour leadership.
Fast forward two years, and Miliband is humiliated in the general election, triggering a leadership contest far sooner than he would have liked. Joyce, who limped on as an independent MP, had left the scene.
Ironically, the SNP wipeout of Scottish Labour meant that the one-time safe seat became nothing of the sort, and candidate Karen Whitefield (Murphy had been dropped amid the scandal) never got to Westminster.
Miliband resigned on the spot after the defeat, triggering a battle to inherit his crown. In order to enthuse everyday voters, Labour registration fees were dropped to just £3, massively empowering the ordinary party member.
While a host of familiar faces stepped forward to vie for supremacy, an oddball backbencher named Jeremy Corbyn decided to stand on behalf of the party’s hard left.
If Eric Joyce hadn't punched a bloke in parliament in 2012, this would never have happened.
— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) June 24, 2016
Unbelievably, he won by a landslide after inspiring hundreds of thousands of voters to join the party to vote for him – a phenomenon which would almost certainly have proved impossible under the pre-Falkirk rules.
Corbyn’s was a controversial figure from the start – but all his actions as leader pale to insignificance against his lack of action in the EU Referendum.
Corbyn, widely considered a closet Leave voter, endorsed a Remain position but hardly turned out – and indeed frustrated the official pro-EU campaign time after time.
It is virtually inconceivable that any other Labour leader would have mimicked his lacklustre performance, which failed to connect with many of their core voters.
Given the tightness of the vote – 48% to 52% – it’s entirely plausible that a more committed Labour leader could have swung it.
When Joyce swung his fist on a Wednesday night four years ago, he was probably aiming for an opposition politician.
Instead, he fist connected with the jaw of the global order – and smashed it out of joint, perhaps for good.
