WATCH out Foresters because, despite Brexit, a large majority of Westminster MPs – including Mark Harper who was recently observed muttering that ‘the UK could, of course, survive outside the EU’ – are much keener on invoking memories of Hotel California where, as The Eagles once warbled, ‘you can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave’ – than they are on invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

The Brexit vote, which now requires honouring in Westminster, is merely the end of the beginning of Britain’s process of EU disengagement.

The next stage, pending full independence, is for Britain to reduce to the bare essentials the Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover once proposed by Paul Simon, and select the only practical way – which is to rejoin European Free Trade Area and, by retaining access to

the Single Market via

the European Economic Area, secure a measure of control over freedom of movement via Article 112.

For the benefit of Mr Harper and other gloomsters: ‘The question,’ to quote Maya Angelou, ‘is not how to survive, but how to thrive with passion, compassion, humour and style.’

And the answer, which is as true now as it was 20 years ago when the founder of The Albion Party called for an EU referendum in the party’s 1997 General Election manifesto, is the resurrection of ‘self-belief, empowerment and the restoration of democracy.’

But ‘now is the time to say goodbye, to yield a sigh and forget, for a moment, leaving the EU – or even Leaving Las Vegas which was apparently fairly traumatic – because after 10 happy years the Muirs are leaving Newnham, and heading for an English outpost on the edge of ‘the land of lost content’.

Thank you, to the Review for being a sterling publication and may you continue to keep your readers blissfully abreast of events! God bless you all.

– John Muir, Newnham.