Accentuating the negative is oh so easy. All you need to do is throw out a few snippets that are predicated on untruthfulness. A few phrases such as "unelected bureaucrats in Brussels," "the EU gravy train," "taking back control," "immigrants driving down wages," "immigrants straining our public services," "ever closer union," "stealing our sovereignty," add more of your own. Not one of those is based on a honest assessment of where we are today as EU members. The positives are not so black and white and far more easily demolished by little-Englander ignorance (which has generated all the above). The fact that we are a major member of a huge free-trading bloc with whom we do half our trade in goods. The fact that we are a leading financial services centre not only in Europe but in the world: there are plenty of financial institutions in the EU who are now licking their lips at the prospect of grabbing big lumps of that for themselves once the bureaucracy has hobbled us after brexit. The fact that, because you can't be in the EU unless you sign up to democracy, human rights and the rule of law, we don't have wars in Europe any more. There's a lot wrong with the EU. The EU fisheries and agricultural policies are great ideas gone bad. The bureaucracy is definitely unwieldy and top-heavy. An EU army is just a bloody bad idea. The common currency was a deal that an average sixth-former could have told you would never work properly. But as a big, influential member of the club we should be right in there fighting for reform. Instead, for decades we've acted like petulant schoolboys moaning and groaning about how much we have to pay, etc., and about all those other illusory issues I started this post with. The EU both needs us and will be glad to see the back of us. There'll be nothing much glad in this country once we're out.

As Pete said to Nigel, "you are one of the 17 million folk who have swallowed all this crap over the years so now feel justified in voting against their own and the country's best interests."

I actually think that most people now realise that brexit goes solidly against this county's interests. "Not liking foreigners" simply doesn't cut it. Trade will be difficult and finding new trading partners to do deals with will be hard, considering that we don't make much stuff and a lot of what we do make can't compete with the likes of China with its vast production scales and cheap labour. The services sector which is over three-quarters of our economy will be badly hit by levels of bureaucracy so far unheard of. We will have skilled labour shortages all over the economy as EU workers increasingly find this country a very unattractive place to come to, if they can get in at all. We've already discovered, surprise surprise, that we may be able to control people coming in but we can't control them leaving. EU citizens are already voting with their feet. I'm not voting for people who put political posturing above the interests of this country, and that includes Jeremy Corbyn, who, instead of putting up a feisty opposition to brexit and presenting the country with a genuine alternative, seems to have become totally paralysed. The interests of this country are far more important than sticking to ridiculous and pusillanimous standpoints such as "we must abide by the will of the people." As even Nigel has pointed out, it was just over a third who expressed that will. Another third expressed the opposite and just under another third kept schtum. That is not an overwhelming mandate to take all of us, especially the young, to hell in a handcart, and the sooner the politicos man up and starting bravely telling us the truth the better.