Time to deliver Independence Day

In any event, the referendum has been like a massive bowling ball smashing into the skittles which is the established order of British politics. It has pitted family members, friends, cities and rural areas, businesses, political parties against each other in a long drawn out battle of rhetoric and ideas and whose particular vision makes most sense? No one can ever say again that they did nothing or care less about the EU!

Why are we surprised? It’s been a tough, combative and fractious six months but in a democracy, people are entitled to feel passionately about the future of their own country, their families and their local communities and the world their kids will live in and the one their forefathers fought for.

Did men die on the Normandy beaches for cheaper roaming charges?

I make no apologies for caring about the future of my country and arguing forcefully for it to leave what was once a noble entity but is now a fledgling superstate. For me, it’s always been about sovereignty and democracy and the people versus the Establishment.

All our political parties will be affected after today’s polling. UKIP will have achieved its central aim or it will have failed but nevertheless perhaps be on the verge of a renaissance. The Liberal Democrats have been shown to be an ephemeral irrelevance in elective politics. Labour will have turned its backs on perhaps as many as 40% of its own core voters, who favour a break with the EU and whose Leader has been lukewarm to say the least, in his own grudging support for an institution he has attacked for over 30 years.

My own party will undoubtedly be split asunder by the appalling conduct of the Prime Minister and especially the Chancellor in the Referendum campaign - both consistently ignoring the positive and optimistic case for the EU in favour of misinformation, exaggeration, obfuscation and cynicism.

In my opinion, the position of the Chancellor is untenable and he should quit soon, if only to try to restore the Conservative Party to some kind of unified state and some kind of equilibrium.

The EU referendum had to happen, not least because some issues are so big and fundamental that you can’t trust politicians with them.

I hope and believe that the electorate will make the right choice