I have no idea what Unity is meant to look like. Is it a presumption that I have the same values as the lady next to me at the bus stop? Is unity what all those people in the pub watching telly have got? Or is it some nebulous idea that I understand people somewhere else in the country, even if they don’t understand me?

So please excuse me if I dismiss this idea of unity, and focus instead on something like consideration. As in when people are aware of differences among themselves, and consider the effect of something on others. It’s much more tangible to me; something I can track, even measure.

For example, have we considered the effect of keeping people in the dark about the possible ramifications of leaving the EU? Have we considered whether people had an adequate opportunity to inform themselves? Are we happy with the way that was handled? Did we consider whether we have a democracy fit for purpose — before asking people to use their democratic prerogatives? Have we asked ourselves if our assumptions were well-founded? Have we considered how we’d feel if the outcome was 60/40 instead of 52/48? Are we thinking about how to get the depressed 48% and the outraged 52% to have a chat? Do we even know whether we care about any of this?

Have we considered our own responsibility for sleepwalking into this? Did we stop to ask whether we thought a referendum was a good thing? Or did we just hope that there’d enough sensible, educated and hip people voting to see us through?

There’s a lot we can ask ourselves in hindsight. It’s a useful thing to do, because it will help us get a grip on what to do next.

Or we could just drift into another calamity of our own making.

Having had that little train of thought, I now have an idea of what unity looks like. It’s on Facebook, and she says:

Every day I spend about half an hour on the Britian First Facebook page explaining how British and other Parliamentary democracies work.