And like Nigel Farage, our own Alfred Sant and Joseph Muscat jumped onto the Brussels gravy train at the first opportunity.

Boris Johnson has (deliberately) turned himself into a parody of Englishness precisely because he is the great-grandson of a Turk. That’s the psychology at work there.

Obama told them in no uncertain terms that once out of the EU, the UK (by then probably shorn of Scotland and possibly Wales and Northern Ireland), cannot expect any preferential trade deal with the US. It would be at the end of the queue, he told them.

Like our own “partnersip l-ahjar ghazla”, the Brexit fantasy being sold by Johnson’s reactionary Tories and UKIP is a pie in the sky.

Instead of rebutting Obama’s stand with logical arguments, Boris Johnson resorted to racism, calling Obama a half-Kenyan with ancestral loathing for Britain (that’s rich coming from someone of Turkish origins).

Nigel Farage told Obama to butt out. Like Malta’s anti-EU campaign, the Vote Leave campaign is headed by a pair of buffoons, (Malta’s was led by Alfred Sant and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, with Joseph Muscat bringing up the rear).

Those working for Brexit have been exposed as the moral and political heirs of Sir Oswald Mosley and Enoch Powell. They are no better than their Eurosceptic counterparts across the channel.

It’s not a surprise that many Maltese living in the UK support Brexit.