In what sense are we not already independent? The UK contributes 0.5%, half of one percent, of its total GDP to the EU. We are not in the eurozone. 95% of all laws pertaining to the EU have been fully agreed to by the UK and with around just 2% of EU laws are we in active disagreement. We buy more from them than they buy from us, and it's all tariff-free, and, in very round figures it amounts to about half of all our trade. We can and do trade with the rest of the world, but all thst will now have to be renegotiated. Cor, aren't we good at negotiating! The EU forms a powerful trading bloc that contains the UK population times eight. That's what we're ditching.

So, once we are up to our necks in tariffs, red tape and having to keep to trading rules that we'll no longer have any say in, and have to try to strike favourable deals for our uncompetitive exports with other countries, many of whom are currently laughing their heads off at what we're doing, I'm sure you'll be able to explain to me precisely how we'll be any more "independent" than we are now. Just a gentle word in your shell-like: king, country, Biggles and empire are long dead. Try that on with those prospective trading partners and they'll just laugh all the way to China and India.