SIR Winston Churchill famously said in 1953 that Britain did not want to merge into a federal European system, telling MPs: “We are with them but not of them.”

Some six decades later, Theresa May has triggered the beginning of the end for Britain’s 44-year rocky relationship with the European Union.

But she had a message for our EU neighbours that, despite the Brexit vote, the country was not leaving Europe and wanted to remain “committed partners and allies to our friends across the continent”.

The EU in many ways has been a civilising force. Post-Second World War and the fall of the Iron Curtain, it has helped foster the creation of demo- cracies, boosted economic growth and maintained peaceful relations.

It has broken down borders and allowed people from 28 different countries to travel and work freely across the Continent.

But the EU, which began as a trading area, has for some morphed into a political project run by Eurocrats and that, in the wake of the financial crash, has seen a disastrous economic downturn across southern European states, most notably Greece, with high unemploy- ment, high debt and crippling austerity.

The migration crisis, fuelled by conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, has exacerbated the political and economic pressures that may still have some way to play out in elections in France and Germany later this year.

In the Commons, the Prime Minister drew ironic laughter when she spoke of forging a new post-Brexit partnership with the EU on values and interests based on co-operation in security and economic affairs, declaring: “Perhaps now, more than ever, the world needs the liberal, democratic values of Europe.”

But Mrs May was adamant Britain would remain a close friend and ally and a committed partner of the EU. “We will play our part to ensure that Europe is able to project its values and defend itself from security threats and we will do all that we can to help the European Union to prosper and succeed.”

The political heat at Westminster hit a high when the future of that other Union was raised.

Angus Robertson, the SNP Commons leader, challenged the Prime Minister on respecting democracy, claiming she had reneged on a promise to secure an agreement with Holyrood before invoking Article 50 and warning that if her intransigence continued over agreeing a second independence referendum, then she would make an independent Scotland “inevitable”.

For her part, Mrs May insisted the Government would enter the Brexit talks as “one united Kingdom”. She stressed the interests of Scotland and the other devolved administrations would be taken into account, that there would be full consultation on the repatriation of powers and that at the end of the process Scotland would have more decision-making powers; albeit she failed to say what they would be. It seems clear given the have more decision-making powers; albeit she failed to say what they would be.

It seems clear, given the Prime Minister’s decision to dig in her heels on the issue of a second vote on Scotland’s future, that there will be constant constitutional static as she and her ministers seek to thrash out an all-consuming, complex deal with Brussels.

As the EU27 flexed its muscles, insisting Mrs May’s desire to do a twin track deal on withdrawal and trade was a non-starter - that the former had to be completed before the latter could begin - Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator, made clear that whatever agreement was reached it could not be better than Britain’s current one within the EU family.

“That is not a question of revenge, that is not a question of punishment, that is the logic of the European Union, of the European treaties, of the European Project,” he insisted.

The road to Brexit looks set to be long and hard and there may be a few breakdowns on the way as Britain seeks its new beginning. And all the while the question remains whether leaving one Union will lead to the break-up of another.