Ready for Brexit.

Ready for Brexit.

There is a part of us that believes that the last three years have just been a figment of our imagination. Finally, Britain will be leaving the EU(European Union) once and all without any more bust ups, heated arguments, toxic divisions, sometimes very explosive TV disagreements and the kind of open, animated conversations that would probably have been banned in Communist Russia many decades ago.

And yet here we are on the eve of Brexit and the satirical comedians are sharpening their one liners while the social commentators are readying their cutting comments, telling observations and wonderfully facetious wisecracks. This can't be happening or can it? After all this time, they've submitted their withdrawal agreement, a hefty document that must have been groaning on some poor Brussels mantelpiece for who knows how long. Britain can celebrate once again and that has to be good news.

The decisions and conclusions have been reached, tweaks and corrections made while those in positions of authority in Westminster wring their hands, heartily relieved that they won't have to go through all of this again for quite some time. Hopefully! We've been wrestling with all of these complex issues for so long that it is hard to remember a time when sanity once prevailed, Boris Johnson was still Mayor of London and Larry the Cat had more pressing matters on his mind outside 10 Downing Street.

So it is that on the last day of January 2020, the bells will ring out resoundingly across London town, patriotic Union Jack flags will be waved triumphantly and Nigel Farage will breathe the most enormous sigh of relief. Yesterday, with that rather tiresomely smug face, Farage, accompanied by the latest Brexit recruit Ann Widdecombe, formerly of a Tory persuasion, looked extremely pleased with themselves. We told you it would happen and it has. A group of passionate Brexiteers rose as one, smiled and grinned like Cheshire cats and performed a brief re-enactment of the Last Night of the Proms.

Now it was that Farage and his loyal Brexit chums, stood together as one, clapping, applauding and basking in their own reflected glory. It is at times like this when you find yourself despairing of the whole political process. You look across at those huge banks of MEP figures and wonder what on earth have we done to deserve them as credible and important characters who are genuinely committed to the future welfare of Britain. But then we think of Brexit.

Of course Brexit has to be a force for good, a powerful antidote to all of those miserably restrictive laws, rules and regulations that all of those EU ministers are determined to saddle us with for the rest of our lives. We have to break out of this endless circle of stern European directives that every so often act as insufferable obstacles to British progress. Global trading links and alliances have to be hugely beneficial if Britain is to expand its horizons and frontiers. It has to be time to strike while the iron is hot.

According to those in the know it is time to widen Britain's reach, capitalising on all of that rich potential that is poised to be tapped into now rather than later. Britain has to venture forward into all of those emerging Far East markets where lucrative deals will be confidently negotiated and all in the garden will be rosy for ever more.

Even now we can see multi billion cargoes of trade and commerce washing onto British shores with the abundant promise of more to come. They'll be flooding into the expectant ports of Southampton and Dover, swilling around like barrels of rum that were drunk incessantly at all of those epic shipping battles that Horatio Nelson took such evident pride in. By tomorrow morning the world will be Britain's oyster. Roll up, Roll up everybody British prosperity is on its way and it'll change the UK's economic, global position in quite the most dramatic and revolutionary fashion. So hold on everybody.

Before you know it we'll be inundated with huge supplies of tea, coffee, silks and fabrics of the most exotic quality, diamonds from South Africa of the most exquisite order, steel and teak wood from all over the world with all of the best that high technology and innovation that the world can offer. Suddenly all of those undreamt luxuries we'd always fantasised about will be laid before us in all of their wondrous splendour. The days when Britain once occupied its rightful place in the Empire will now seem like distant specks on a crumpled map of the world.

No longer will the UK have to depend exclusively on the generosity of the Dutch for Edam cheese as the only other option, or the French for their red wine and Camembert cheese. Of course we'll still be able to acquire our juicy oranges from Seville and Jaffa from Israel but now the choices will become that much wider and Europe will just have to make do and mend, burying their heads in their hands and wondering why Britain had to be quite so different, awkward and impossible.

It now occurs to you that Britain may well undergo the sort of cultural renaissance that took the 1960s by the scruff of the neck and transformed it almost overnight. Who could ever forget the fashion and music from this unforgettable decade, that astonishing World Cup football victory in 1966 and Harold Wilson reminding us all of that White Heat of Technology while slowly rolling the tobacco in his pipe?

Well, here we are at the beginning of a new decade in the 21st century and if our talking heads and wise social forecasters are to be believed it could be happening all over again. This could indeed be the land of sun lit uplands where the already rich, middle and upper classes become obscenely richer, everyday products are wrapped in gold or platinum while every home will be able to boast 23 TVs, ten chaise longues in their living rooms and ornately panelled libraries the size of a country.

Of course this is wildly wishful thinking and Brexit might be thinking along different lines but it would be intriguing to be a fly on the wall in the cafes, bars and restaurants of France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Switzerland tomorrow. Will they be raising a glass and toasting the health of their European neighbours or will there be some uncomfortable silence which quite clearly suggests that they'll never approve of our arrogance, our distinctly unfriendly insularity and refusal to work alongside them at any point in the future?

Tomorrow in Brussels, the grumpy officials and administrators at the European top table will be drowning their sorrows. making all manner of contingency plans in the absence of Britain and trying to get on with the business of life without the UK. They may decide to complete the contents of well ribboned boxes of Thorntons Belgian chocolates, wolfing down their waffles and then searching for alcoholic consolation.

Whatever happens tomorrow - and we feel sure that it will- Brexit will be announced, declared, written in stone, official, no questions asked and it's here to stay. Boris Johnson will, in all likelihood, stand outside 10 Downing Street, blond hair still unchallengeably in a class of its own and never quite sure what next to do. He will stick to the statesman's script, sure that the country is definitely on the right course, perhaps blurt out a couple of Latin gems and then quote from Winston Churchill.

These are happy, auspicious moments in British history. We'll wake up tomorrow morning, flinging open the curtains or blinds and skipping along to our kitchens with a buoyant spring in our step. We will conveniently forget the last three years at Westminster, settle our differences, confront the future without the EU and its pernicious influence, read the newspapers, crunch our toast and then sing all the way to the railway station. It's all been too complicated and unnecessary at times but we've got through it all and the world will seem much the same as it's always been. Or we hope it will. But of course it will because Nigel Farage has every confidence that it will. And we know what Nigel thinks. Good health everybody.