I haven't been on this site for a long time. And what a mess we have made of our country, our continent, our connections. And, by the way, just because the USA has made - and is continuing to make -  a worse mess is no excuse. 

There are those of us who understand that what is so wrong with the Brexit vote is not so much to do with trade as a failure to grasp what the EU was, and is, for. We have historically been a tightly packed, irritable continent that has resorted to war so frequently over the centuries that the 70 odd years of peace we have managed as a union (of sorts) are remarkable. So remarkable, it seems, that people are prepared to throw it away, or they somehow think that because we are in the 21st century we wouldn't do all that again, or they dont think at all.

The People Have Spoken is the refrain. But of course the people did no such thing. 37% of the electorate voted to leave. Large numbers were disenfranchised for reasons of age or that they were living in the Europe they so wish to remain in. Of those that voted, only just over half voted to leave and many because (as in the US) their lives had been overlooked, downplayed and ignored. In many cases their reasons for wanting to leave had nothing to do with the EU, even if some of them thought and still think the EU was the problem.

Immigration, we have been told, is the main worry. We apparently need less of it. But we will not get less of it, so what will those who so wanted out do then? They will have been betrayed. How disaffected will they then become?