We have all had just about as much as we can take of the minutiae of the Brexit negotiations, and most normal people must be keen to see an end to it. “Get a life, Dad,” as my daughter likes to tell me. Backstops, Canada +++ and the rest of it. Ugh. Is this not a woods and trees moment? What most of us want to see is a swift and clean exit from the EU to be replaced by a clean and easy free-trade area. If we call it a “common market” (leaving on one side the precise details for the moment,) most normal people would breathe a sigh of relief and say “yes – that is what I voted for in 1973 and that is what I want now.” What has been largely ignored during the last two years of turgid negotiation has been much focus on what we want Britain to look like over the next 50 years. That it is the void which my new book Full English Brexit tries, in its own anecdotal and controversial way, to fill: a Britain free from the shackles of the EU has so much to offer the world – in diplomatic, military, cultural, educational, economics, business and in so many other ways. And we long for the days when we will once again be a free and independent nation – ready and able and willing to fulfil that destiny. Surely now is the time when we must all try to lift our sights from the details of the negotiations and try to paint a picture of what we want Britain to be like in the future? If my book plays some little part in sparking that debate, then it will have done its job. Incidentally, for the purists, the book’s title in no way predicts the break-up of the UK, but “Full English Brexit” seemed like a better pun than “Full UK Brexit” (and I apologise to anyone who inadvertently buys it seeking recipes for sausage, bacon and egg).