I'm beginning to think that retirement in the style of Brexit is a mistake. Like Brexit itself. A big mistake.

All my retirement projects and plans to enjoy the area within a ten mile radius of this Spot are still completely valid. It is a fantastic area: beautiful countryside, rich culture, unrivalled industrial heritage, landscapes my ancestors enjoyed. What more could one want from the place where one's roots go deep? But all that would still be true without Brexit. 

This week has been demoralising. The European banking and medical agencies have announcing their new locations. UK losing its place on the International Court of Justice  (ICJ) for the first time in the court's history, living costs rising, working people getting poorer, reports of foreign involvement in our democratic processes and almost every player in the Leave campaign, the funding of Leave.EU and spending of Vote Leave, under investigation by the electoral commission. But that isn't the worst; far worse is that the government appears blind to these things and, aided and abetted by the useless opposition, is ploughing on regardless and completely disregarding the views of more than half the population including significantly more than half of young adults.

The rich bully boys, proud of their deceptions, brazenly denying their contradictions even in the face of overwhelming evidence, are calling the shots. They are effectively shorting the country's ecconomy to feather their own nests at the expense of everyone else, so called disaster capitalism, and the government is too feeble or too stupid to stop them. Worse it seems to be helping them, confusing the tyranny of the majority (if it is even a majority) for democracy.

When my daughters were young I used to read to them. I remember one story was about a young boy, a good swimmer who tackled the bullies. When they realised they couldn't beat him they asked him to join them. He asked why they did it. The reply: because they could. Power. This is my view of what the Brexit leaders and sponsors are doing. Some will make money; others are high with the exercise of the power they have acquired.

Some Brexit leaders have dropped any pretence of finding benefits for the average voter. What is their aim in pushing Brexit? According to a tweet from Andrew Lilico, simply to be outside the EU. What is the criteria of success? To not be in the EU at the end. That is it! Some of his followers think that is a good enough reason. No need to explain why they want to be outside. They just do and everyone else has to go out into the cold with them. Because they can.

I don't think that is acceptable. Given the disruption and the increasingly evident disadvantages, they should be decent enough to present some positive reasons, otherwise it is nothing more than ideological zealotry perpetrated by bullies; to prove they can.

For someone once as proud of the country as of their home town it is more than depressing. Even Zimbabwe has overthrown its dictator president (although whether the replacement will be any better remains to be seen).

Personally I am fed up with being a non-person, a non-citizen. I'm beginning to doubt the solice to be found in the local countryside, the garden and the control over my own time will keep out the Brexit chaos. I've been trying to focus on the positives (or at least the not-negatives) but I'm faltering now. There is no way I would style my retirement in the style of Mr Lilico's Brexit, even if I could. I don't want to retire just to be not at work.