NO ONE had heard of Daniel Hannan before this summer. No one has heard of him since.

I suspect that’s the way he likes it. But Hannan is probably going to be seen as one of the most influential political figures in British post-war history.

You really should know of him of course. He represents you.

A Brighton resident, Hannan, 45, is a Tory Member of the European Parliament for the South East.

You had the chance to vote for him in the last Euro elections although I suspect most of you didn’t bother.

I wasn’t familiar with him until he sat on a panel at an EU referendum public debate this newspaper held before the vote in June.

He’s slightly built and a bit full of manic energy.

His eyes can bolt when he talks in that “why can’t people see what I can” sort of way.

He’s obviously clever but maybe a bit too clever in the way Oxford history graduates can be. I doubt he does empathy.

But Hannan is the architect of the UK’s seismic decision to leave the European Union.

He is the brains behind it, the speechwriter, in effect, for the duller wits who fronted the campaign, the man who since the age of 19 has lived for nothing else but to reassert what he believes is Britain’s right to reclaim self-determination.

To take us back to a golden imperial age many do not believe ever existed or, if it did, do not want back.

A libertarian, roll-back-the-state, right-wing thinker who all this time waited for his chance.

A man, it is said, who tries to read Shakespeare once a week. It’s anyone’s guess how many times he’s delved into Henry V.

Of course Brexit had many fathers, some of them unsavoury characters indeed, but Hannan gave it its intellectual veneer.

He was simply too nimble of thought for many of his opponents, constantly urging voters to “make me redundant” from his Brussels day job.

For Hannan, former Prime Minister John Major’s approval of the Maastricht Treaty in 1990 was the call to arms, a genuine sense of shock at loss of sovereignty, even if it is highly questionable whether his hero Margaret Thatcher was anywhere near as Eurosceptic as he is.

In an interview Hannan said the move led to him swearing “a terrible oath to do something”.

All these years later his work is done.

Not for Hannan the picking up of the pieces, the huge rebuilding job post Brexit that becomes more daunting as the true costs of our decision becomes apparent.

He is an intellectual dismantler.

Now we have the Huey, Duey and Louie of politics, Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox, in charge of Brexit and who could have believed that three such dolts would be in charge of taking us to Hannan’s Promised Land.

In truth his vision of the shape of his true Britannia was always a little less clear than his razor-sharp dissection of the European ideal.

Hannan has no interest in continuing in politics after the self-inflicted loss of his job.

He’ll pop up in some other policy wonk body pushing an unthinkable policy which he’ll make thinkable.

Unlike last time, we would be very well advised to keep our eye on him.

The Argus: Visitors meet Newshound, The Argus snowdog, at Brighton Railway Station.

I hope you are enjoying the Snowdog Trail.

I’ve seen hundreds taking snaps of the brightly coloured beasts and quite a few laughing at the headlines which festoon

Newshound, our own dog at Brighton Station.

The headlines are on bill boards which sell the paper outside newsagent shops, the wackiness of which, has made them world famous.

They are a tribute to sub editors past who knew that news had to be a mix of the serious and light-hearted.

Personal favourites are “seagull stole my dentures”, “warning over dangerous cupcakes” and “woman sets off fire alarm because high heels hurt”.

Incredibly all true stories.