With as much respect as I can have to someone I don’t know… Utter hogwash!

It would appear you knew a middle-class, privileged view of leftist, elitist Britain. The U.K., like most European countries, has gone through tremendous change in the last 20 years, some for the better, some for the worse. One of the most treacherous and deplorable worse was the marginalisation of the ‘working class’. Whist you were delightfully skipping from opera to gallery, millions of ordinary people in the UK (paying taxes, generating the backbone-wealth and doffing their cap to our Etonian political ‘betters’) were corralled into an political correctness nightmare! ‘Change is coming, but don’t you dare question any of it, if you do you’re clearly a racist, bigot, Xphobe… And nobody likes a nasty little Englander with an opinion that upsets our sensibilities!’

We and the EU institutionalised it in just about every way possible, ‘for the good of everyone’. But what we did not do was properly reeducate and foster real tolerance and acceptance, instead we sent a clear message to millions of frustrated people that their opinion didn’t count and wasn’t of consequence in the EU bigger picture. We did not listen; successive governments (from both major parties) ignored the warning signs and skipped by on pseudo-politics, being careful not to appear in the headlines for saying the wrong thing! God forbid they have an actual stance on a difficult subject!

Is it really such a surprise that these ignored, marginalised people are now taking one of their few opportunities to get their message across? Have you really misunderstood the resilience of the British psyche so much?

Yes, without doubt there is a nasty little sub-set of loathsome individuals who have and are taking this opportunity to celebrate and promulgate their ridiculous anti-everything views (just like the same little loathsome groups you will undoubtedly find in most countries around the world; it’s not an exclusively British issue). But tarring 17.4 million people with the same brush, is frankly, just the same approach as the aforementioned loathsome.

So what should we do in your dreamy world of English, chocolate-box perfection? Ignore this, clearly massive group again? Petition for another referendum? Make eloquent statements about how dreadful the proletariat are for having the audacity to have an opinion different from ours? Should we marginalise them even more? Perhaps we should call them names and tell them we’re ashamed of them? Might that work? Might that place a sticking plater over this gaping wound?

Isn’t it time our government listened to their people’s concerns (all of them)? Isn’t it time our politicians stopped using spin and political correctness to not answer direct concerns (valid or otherwise)? Isn’t it time as a country we faced the difficult questions and found real solutions; understanding we’re unlikely to make everyone happy, but just so long as we’re just, fair, equitable and on the side of equality, decency and compassion?

Or maybe we should just pine for a perfect yesterday, which clearly had no problems or ills! Where people didn’t have nasty little ‘racist’ concerns. Where we could sip our free white wine at the gallery, whilst pondering the latest Damien Hirst.

If you truly are an Anglophile why are you so willing to walk away? Be part of the solution, not the problem.