Your Diarist would be amiss were he not to wish, all and sundry, a happy “Independence Day.”

Doubtless you think either I’m having an “episode” or it’s already the Fourth of July (after the speediest fortnight in history). Well, I can assure you that we’re still in the last quarter of June.

No, I bring glad tidings on the third anniversary of Britain’s 2016 referendum vote to exit the European Union. Huzzah! If Britain and America are divided by a common language, how does one say “Yankee Doodle Dandy” in London?

The historic occasion sneaks upon even the most earnest Brexiteer almost as an afterthought. That speaks to what supporters of Britain’s independence have endured, for the past 36 months, from the machinations of the European Union.

Boris Johnson, now a leading contender to become the next Conservative leader and British prime minister, coined the “Independence Day” Brexit shorthand during the lead-up to the referendum, in which he made a huge contribution.

Until he stepped into the van, the pro-independence faction was largely about the faults of membership in the EU — the costs, the interference, the open border. It was Mr. Johnson who focused on the “sunny uplands” of liberty.

Yuuuge, as Mr. Trump might say.

At the time, it is easy to see how idealists would identify with the Second Continental Congress and the 56 delegates sweltering in the Philadelphian heat that July 1776.

The Founders were debating the merits of Richard Henry Lee’s Virginia resolution, that these thirteen “United Colonies” declare themselves “free and independent states . . . absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown,” with “all political connection . . . totally dissolved.”

Two and a half centuries later and with the shoes on different feet, the ensuing realities disclose that the Brexit euphoria was premature. The hard part would not be setting out the case for exiting the EU.

Both campaigns underestimated the public’s yearning to be independent, freed from Brussels bureaucrats, and to regain self-government. Brexit, after all, won that referendum by a healthy margin.

The hard part would be getting the government to acquiesce to the people. It turns out that Britain has its own version of what Mr. Trump is facing in the “deep state.” “Leavers” against “Remainers” is a maddening challenge.

Article 50, for instance, that very legal instrument that set out how EU members could secede from the Union, required negotiations and agreement before that “independence” came to pass, or a 2-year minimum in lieu of a withdrawal accord.

When the American Founders signed Jefferson’s famed “Declaration of Independence” they were to all intents and purposes freed of their bonds to George III and the British Parliament.

All that remained was to convince the King and his Government of the fact. General Washington and his army willingly obliged and Great Britain came to ratify, in the Jay Treaty, the independence of her erstwhile colonies.

Britain has been wanting such negotiators in its dealings with the European Union; she has neither a Washington nor an Adams. So here we are, three years after the referendum victory and still no Brexit.

It reminds me of the famous stage production, where two gentlemen wait for a third who never manages to arrive. They had better luck with Godot than Prime Minister May had with Barnier and the boys.

Let it not be the Brexit voters who are kept waiting. Never mind. Take heart. Brexiteers keep the faith, if remembering the date when that hope in independence was kindled is buried in the subconscious for painful reasons.

The Conservative party is seeking a new leader to make Brexit a reality by the end of October. Tory Brexiteer MPs are no less outraged with their government for its perfidy.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage and his Brexit party are prepared to exact political retribution if Tories further abuse the public trust. That’s another circumstance in which to draw some optimism.

Let them remember the Anglo-American pamphleteer Thomas Paine, who cheered his compatriots with this “consolation”: “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Paine’s admonitions should bolster Britons to believe this ongoing struggle for sovereignty a virtue; it was, after all, Paine who also said, “what we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.”

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Drawing by Elliott Banfield, courtesy of the artist.