What a dramatic day

I feel very sad and very worried. The country has voted to leave the European Union.

I went to sleep on Thursday with the opinion polls and the commentators predicting a narrow win for Remain.

Nigel Farage of UKIP (UK Independence Party) had even conceded defeat and, on the basis of positive polls, the £ had risen to a recent high.

I woke up about 4am to the sound of the radio, which I’d left on, reporting that Leave was ahead in the count and Remain now likely to lose. And that’s just what happened.

The country voted to leave the EU by a margin of four per cent. Only in London, Scotland and a few other large cities (including Liverpool, Bristol, Newcastle and Manchester) was the Remain vote strong.

The £ had fallen to its lowest level in 30 years, the stock market had fallen by eight per cent and at just after 8am the Prime Minister came on TV and resigned. Talk about a dramatic morning - I’ve never witnessed anything like this in my life.

A day on and the EU’s attitude is hardening. We won’t get an easy exit, we won’t get a favourable trade deal and it’s clear that we have no idea what we’re going to do.

The Leave campaigners have no plans, their strategy was out, but the implementation of that decision hasn't been considered. The promises made during the campaign are already being broken. Nigel Farage, who promised money spent on the EU would be spent on the NHS, was on breakfast TV to claim that wasn’t what he said at all (despite it being painted on the side of his campaign bus).

We have no government policy for Brexit and we have no government. The PM is still there, but has given notice and all the pro-EU cabinet ministers are effectively neutralised. The next Prime Minister will be selected first by Conservative MPs, who will choose two candidates, and then by vote of members of the Conservative Party (150,000 people, of which I’m one). It’s not exactly a democratic process and, to be honest, I can’t think of anyone I’d care to vote for. Boris Johnson is a clever man, but I feel he has no principles, just a lust for the top job, but he is clear favourite. I’d prefer Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who is the best in my view, but she won’t be in the mix.

We need a good, one-nation Conservative, and there’s not one among the candidates. Frankly, I feel so angry at the Conservative party right now, I might just join the Lib-Dems. I’ve always thought I was slightly to the left of the party, I now realise I’m at the extreme left of the party and probably shouldn’t be a member.

So where do we go from here? I haven’t a clue.

Before the referendum, the message from the Leave campaigners was “everything will be fine”, now they’re not giving interviews.

There will almost certainly be a steady fall in the stock market, punctuated by some scary drops and clawbacks as the Bank of England does what it can to stimulate the market; there will be a fall in foreign investment which will hit growth; there will be a move out of the UK and into the EU by many companies (service and manufacturing) and there probably will be another Scottish independence referendum (which may, this time, result in a Scottish exit from the UK).

We will be poorer, we will be more isolated and we already have less influence than we did.

Lots of people are still tweeting and posting that we are a great country and we’ll get through this. I’d say we’re lucky to live in a rich country, although we’re about to get a little poorer, and we will get through it, but not to a level of prosperity that we would have enjoyed had we remained in the EU.

Right now I feel like the grumpy old man who never speaks to his neighbours, who falls out with everyone and who is disliked by everyone in the street.

I feel as if I went to sleep in Great Britain and woke up in Little England.