The European Parliament held a special plenary session yesterday, where MEPs backed a motion urging the United Kingdom to trigger Article 50, which means that the country has formally announced that it is leaving the European Union and that the process to leave kicks in.

At the time of writing, European Union heads of state will have not even yet entered their working dinner, which is where the Brexit will be discussed, with British Prime Minister David Cameron making his last appearance at an EU Council meeting. Whether he was the one that had to face the ignominy of triggering the action will be known today, as the final press conference in held.

The real fireworks however, were not during the council meeting, but in the parliamentary session. In Malta, we are used to it, and it actually looked rather tame in comparison to the nasty barbs and weighted insults that are hurled around the Maltese Chamber.

But when one sees it happen in the European Parliament, it really drives the point home that when our politicians descend to such levels of uncouthness, it dilutes our democratic system.

The issue all began when UKIP’s Nigel Farage made the statements that he had been waiting to make for the past 20-odd years. It was, so to speak, his own victory speech.

European Commission Head Jaen Claude Juncker opened by saying that while the UK needed to clarify her position, the will of her people must be respected. Mr Farage began to clap and shout, and Mr Juncker responded by asking why he (Farage) was even there given that the UK had voted to leave.

Mr Farage then used his time to speak to insult MEPs present, of whom he said none had done a proper day’s work in their lives. The EP President Martin Schultz urged the MEPs not to sink to UKIPs’ depths in their booing, and he then rebuked Mr Farage for his comments.

Farage responded by saying that UKIP used to be laughed at, but no one was laughing now. He said that everyone in the chamber was in denial of the fact that the EU political project was seeing its own demise.

The EU and the UK will strike up a new deal of some sort, and it will, most probably include free movement of goods, trade, people and services. The UK will also remain to be a very close trading partner of the EU. But the end has to begin somewhere, and that somewhere must be at this summit. The EU has offered a few olive branches, with the tone often sounding like the partner being left behind whether the other person was really going to go.

There is no doubt that the UK is having cold feet and that is, most probably down to the dawning realisation that Scotland, if offered the choice, will most definitely leave the United Kingdom for a fast track entry to the EU, and of course the Eurozone.

People have been expressing their regret and it seems that even the ‘leave’ camp in British politics seems to have begun to wonder exactly what it has just done.