Quintin Jardine's blog

We’re there. The bluster and the bullshit of another corrosive referendum campaign lies behind us, stored away in the memory banks of the political participants, so that the winners can take revenge on the losers at a moment of their choosing.

Remain will win, and I will be as good a loser as I was (and still am) when I voted ‘Yes’ to Scottish independence. But one thing I won’t tolerate or forgive, is the assumption that because I voted to leave the EU, I am a kindred spirit to the likes of Nigel Farage, or Katie Hopkins, or Donald Trump . . . although it beats me why his views should have any relevance.

In a debate that has been largely about money and the protection of the wealth of the rich while also salving their social consciences, I have been focused from the start on the long term. This has nothing to do with immigration, or racism, or xenophobia; I believe that a political union of going on for thirty nation states with different cultures, attitudes, objectives and of course languages . . . and that is where the EU is headed . . . will be an unhappy and unstable creation. In the very long term it will also be unworkable.

So I don’t care what Farage says, or how Cameron spins it, or how sore Corbyn’s arse is from all that fence-sitting, or whether Joanne Rowling thinks we’re all mini-Trumps (although when I read that I couldn’t believe she said it), or whether Becks and Posh wake up happy or sad tomorrow. I will not be browbeaten by the strident voices of Nicola, Ruth and Kezia, or even persuaded by my friend Malcolm.

I voted with my conscience, and it’s clear.