First the UK had a Prime Minister who promised a referendum to his own party, when there was no clamour for it, just to secure his own leadership. Then there was a former London Mayor who threw his weight behind the ‘leave’ campaign, only to have a very sober coffee the morning the result was announced.

The thing they have in common? Both of them steered the UK out of the European Union, irreversibly altering the course of history, and they both just walked away.

British politics is in absolutely disarray. In fact the very Britishness of the United Kingdom is in disarray as Scotland ponders another referendum to cede from Great Britain. Northern Ireland, after centuries of sectarian violence is also mulling the option of joining Southern Ireland to create a unified Irish state. What sad and lonely figures the flag of England’s St George and the dragon of Wales will be.

The UK’s Labour Party is also in total freefall as Jeremy Corbyn (never convincing) is being blamed for not mobilising the Labour grassroots to vote in the referendum. Most of his cabinet resigned, he lost a motion of no confidence and he is still clinging to the post.

David Cameron said that in view of is campaign to keep the UK in the European Union, he cannot be the Prime Minister to steer the country out. All well and good. But that would not have happened had he not gambled at such high stakes.

And then, there was the very timid, many would say cowardly, way in which Johnson realised the magnitude of what he had pushed for the very next morning where he was heckled by people who were out to support a gay rights rally.

The UK’s leadership race has been blown wide open. With Johnson’s withdrawal on Thursday, Michael Gove – another backer of the leave campaign – decided that he would do an about turn and contest for the post, despite numerous aides urging him to step aside.

Gove said he should be the next prime minister because Britain needs to be led by someone who genuinely believes in leaving the European Union.

Gove said he had been advocating a British exit, or Brexit, for 20 years. Johnson was a recent convert to the cause, and Gove's leading rival for the leadership, Home Secretary Theresa May, backed the "remain" campaign.

"The best person to lead Britain out of the European Union is someone who argued to get Britain out of the European Union," Gove said. "This country voted for change, and I am going to deliver it."

Gove is up against May and three others to succeed David Cameron as party leader. The winner of that contest automatically becomes Britain's next prime minister — and the person responsible for negotiating the country's historic yet tricky exit from the 28-nation EU.

Whoever becomes the next Prime Minister surely knows that the job is now already a poison chalice, just as Boris Johnson realised and decided to skulk away into the shadows. Brexit has hurt not only Britain, but all of the EU. However, it is becoming abundantly clear that the real people who have been the victims in all of this are all those British youngsters who were not old enough to vote, yet believe so firmly in the cause of a united Europe.