Best-ish of Brit-ish

WE HAVE now the chance to reinvent our country and carve out a new place in the world order. We can take back our Spanish-owned airports, fill our football teams with people born in this country, clear our cities of international companies’ European headquarters and branches, making space for our own.

We can give ourselves the chance to go to the negotiating table and redefine the conditions of Interpol, Nato and all other international treaties and agreements signed up to as part of the UK or the EU. We will find ourselves supported on our borders by the EU states of Ireland and France.

We can say farewell to foreign acts on the stage promoting their songs, unpronounceable names in orchestra line-ups, visa-free holidaymakers taking up rooms in our B&Bs and men and women with different accents coming at all hours of the night to fix our burst pipes or help us into an ambulance.

We have the chance to shape the history of our country, to stand alone and proud on the world stage against whatever international terrorism and the economy may throw at us.

We are a small country, but with our mines, iron and steel industry, farmers and fishermen, British brands and products rolling off our factory production lines, and our pound, we will go forward into a new, selfsufficient future. REBECCA BEDDARD, address supplied.