The turmoil created by the vote for Brexit goes deep into the soul

PHOTOGRAPH: ROBERT PERRY

SO here I am in my French field. The silence is constant apart from the odd birdcall or the tractor that moves along the two roads that transect us.

When I say us, of course, I mean the dog and me. There is no other.

The odd car goes by, as does the postmistress, and occasionally there is the TNT van to deliver my books and wine.

We are on “friends” status now and ask each other how we’re doing. As if either of us really care. But, you know, it’s a touchstone.

The dog, poor soul, is far more excited than me to greet the delivery man he’s got to know. He doesn’t know that many people in our rather limited life.

I, though, of course, have another life he cannot enter – the internet.

And so while he chases the cars that do pass by our field I enter life… not a real life in terms of touch or speech, but the closest I can come to it these days.

Before me on my screen I watched almost three-quarters of a million people march in London for a people’s vote.

I saw them pour through the streets with banners proclaiming a love of united nations, where freedom of movement was a right.

And my heart filled with joy at all those who defied a sullied referendum and shouted out to Parliament that cheating was not, and never should be, acceptable.

As those tired people made their way home, I, who hadn’t moved beyond my computer, felt vindicated that right had triumphed over perfidy.

Among those marching were those from all over “mainland” Europe – those Britons who have made France, Spain, Portugal and all those other countries their home.

Thanks to Brexit, they now risk being third country aliens; overnight illegals forced to prove residency via numerous, difficult documents.