[John Whitworth]

We read the newspapers, Nigel. What do you read? SNP propaganda, I take it. Your dismissal of Orkney and Shetland as of no account is rather high handed even for the SNP.

Your characterisation of the EU as a bastion of freedom is laughable, Dr Grieve is the only person known to have joined the Communist Party BECAUSE of the Hungarian revolution.

If the EU is a free association then why does it desire to 'punish' the UK for wishing to leave it. Why indeed does it put any obstacles in our way?

[Adam Elgar]

It takes quite an exalted level of wilful ignorance to fail to understand that leaving the EU is not like leaving a club, as if you could just stop paying your subscription, and hey presto you're out! It isn't a club, it’s a set of treaties, each containing thousands of separate legal obligations and conditions. We're in breach of contract, and will leave behind a lot of unfinished business with financial implications for 27 other countries.

[John Whitworth]

Treaties can be broken. It happens every day. The EU always SAYS it is a club but of course the EU always lies. What can they do to get a red cent out of us. Invade? Pshaw and likewise Pfui!

The EU is self-destructing. Will it last five years? What do you think?

[Nigel Mace]

The day that one of your posts shows any evidence of rational thought, John - or any regard for the facts - has yet to dawn.

[Michael Cantor]

Oh Nigel, you're being unfair. John does a wonderful Colonel Blimp imitation - the voice, the look, everything - and instead of recognizing that it's all for laughs -and giving him credit for his artistry - for some strange reason you insist on taking it seriously.

[John Whitworth]

The voice? I have a North London accent, like John Major's before he poshed it up. You've heard me, Michael. Your accent seems quite posh to me, though I'm no judge of American accents.

What you mean by Colonel Blimp is someone who reads the Daily Telegraph, I think, rather than the Guardian. I am trying to think of American equivalents but I can't.

I think Nigel's accent must be pretty posh, judging by his background. I think, I think he paid for his education. Mine was free. However, enough of this.

We trigger Brexit on Wednesday. Two more days and we're off.

Perhaps we might consider whether we owe the EU untold billions when they get their accounts signed off. They never have, you know. They are probably making it all up.

[Nigel Mace]

Seems we both have a tendency to take matters seriously in our own political patch, Michael - having seen your last Trump Watch post - and very properly too. As to Colonel Blimp.... I have too high a regard for Roger Livesey to draw the comparison.

"We" of course, are not doing anything so insane as triggering 'Brexit' this week. That is entirely the work of the deranged extreme-right of the Tory party and the four coup leaders, Fox, Davis, Johnson and May who have zero democratic mandate for their plans of leaving the single market and the customs union - even in 'South Britain' - and exactly none, not even for leaving the EU, in Scotland, Northern Ireland or even their cossetted capital, London, not to mention most of the cities. The 'real' Blimp would have wept for he was a soft-hearted soul and a patriot.

[John Whitworth]

You know Nigel, I thought there was a referendum. Or did I dream it. There were quite a lot more of us deranged extremists than there were of you posh guys.

Perhaps it's like those EU referendums. You go on voting until you get it RIGHT.

'South Britain' has a much larger population than all the little 'nations' put together. And how dare you refer to us as unpatriotic because we do not share your insane wish to grovel to the fascist EU.

Never mind. India, for whom I was rooting, beat Australia in a cricket match. All's well with the world. If you want to stay with the EU then the best of luck to you and close the door on the way out, there's a love.

[Nigel Mace]

You need to read more closely, John. The referendum was about leaving the EU - NOT leaving the single market let alone the customs union, both of which actions were described as insane by leading 'Brexit' campaigners. The democratic vote related to the first of these propositions only.

I didn't describe the Leave voters as unpatriotic; I reserve that for those right-wing extremists of the May to Fox faction, to whom you seem willing to attach yourself, who are pig-headedly and undemocratically charging towards the 'hard Brexit', for which the 'Brexit' majority of 'South Britain' did NOT vote. Unless May is intent on extinguishing the last flickers of what passes for 'democracy' in the country (and with the talk of extensive use of 'Henry VIII' clauses that seems not impossible), her faction and hangers on will find that time and the peoples of 'South Britain' will exact their own revenge for having their 'word' so grievously misused - for it it is she and her ilk who are slamming the door on their and on their children's futures.

I promise that as Scotland closes the door behind us that keeps us in the continent which you are so keen to spurn, we'll do it quietly.

[Ann Drysdale]

What do you mean by "posh" in this context, John? Your criteria? I need to know whether I fit them.

I confess I was hoping that Scotland would not secede from the UK at the time of (that) referendum, because of what the rest of us would lose. I have learned a great deal from the measured responses on this thread.