As a contrast to those necessary, but often dispiriting articles detailing the fate that awaits us if we remain within the European Union I thought I would attempt to lighten the bleak winter months that stretch ahead by sharing with you my dream of the future following that day when the dam finally bursts and a tidal wave of public revulsion sweeps away the defeatist and deceitful political establishment and propels UKIP into power.
The first emotion all will feel, except those who live, as Churchill said, 'in the abodes of the wicked' will be that which he described his American guests, Winant and Harriman, experiencing on the night of Pearl Harbour when, as he relates 'one might almost have thought they had been delivered from a long pain'. As it dawns on the British people that the nightmare is over and that they are once again free to determine their own future the outpouring of joy should bear comparison with victory celebrations of old and will set the scene for the days ahead.
In His Last Bow during the final conversation Holmes ever has with Watson, just before the blasts of the First World War blew upon Britain, he says 'a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared'. This hope was not realised in 1918 nor in 1945 but now we have a chance for a fresh start without the need to recover from the debilitating physical and economic wounds of war. Once those who have no belief in the British people have been replaced with men and women of principal who do, we shall regenerate the nation and face the new millennium with a country where the old divisions are laid to rest and all our people, of whatever colour, creed and class can work together to build the future.
On the purely economic front we shall see the restoration of our fishing grounds and the fishermen, so shamefully betrayed by Heath and the other Europhiles, will once again be able to make a decent livelihood in British waters, protected by the Royal Navy.
The farming industry and the countryside, so distorted by the insane operation of the Common Agricultural Policy will return to its proper tasks of producing the nation's food without being forced into the obscenities of factory farms and cannibalistic feeding practices.
The freedom to trade across the world, untrammelled by bureaucratic interference and the releasing of small businesses from the unnecessary regulations which are destroying them will combine to increase the nation's wealth, reduce unemployment and allow us to take on and defeat the tigers of the Pacific Rim.
The recovery of the funds we are currently pouring into the bottomless pit of Brussels will enable us to restore the NHS to its former glory, reform the education system to ensure that our children receive the best in the world, pay our pensioners at the level they deserve and rebuild the nation's infrastructure. The restoration of those historic links with our friends in the Commonwealth and around the world, so disgracefully broken by the 'Little Europeans', will enable us to enjoy once again cheaper food, developing markets and hopefully the friendship of those who so often have shown their regard for Britain.
The political system of the country will cease its slide from democratic accountability into bureaucratic dictatorship and the people will once again have a truly sovereign Parliament whose members will wield the authority but will be directly responsible to the electorate, no supranational bodies having the right to interfere. The replacement of time servers and opportunists by those with genuine ideals will put an end to the sleazy system where selfish considerations have taken precedence over the common good for far too long.
However it is the difference to the morale of the country which will have the greatest effect for, once released from the grip of those who have constantly bemoaned the supposed weakness of the nation, the people will be free to show once again those qualities of innovative genius, hard work and individual flair that have always enabled the British to confound their detractors and to restore their position in the world. Napoleon spoke of the overriding importance of morale and in peace, as in war, it is the deciding factor in whether a nation can fulfil its potential. Led by lions instead of donkeys we will be able to meet all in a spirit of friendship based on a confidence in ourselves.
Of course, in order that we turn this vision of a united, peaceful, confident, democratic and prosperous nation into reality we must first convince the people to give us the chance. In his final novel Podrostok the author Dostoevsky put forward the theory that, in the final analysis, human beings do not change their beliefs because of intellectual argument but because they have first become emotionally convinced of the truth of the proposition. Whether this can be sustained to any great degree may be open to question but it is certainly true that those with heartfelt beliefs can outface many difficulties and doubts which might otherwise defeat them.
I am certain that we have already won the intellectual argument for withdrawal from the EU and, as far as the great mass of the people are concerned, the emotional one as well. The only barrier that faces us is persuading the electorate to truly believe that we can win and that is really an emotional, rather than an intellectual problem; once they feel that certainty which we feel then any pettifogging objections will be swept aside. To those who doubt our ability to become a great political force we must point to the way in which the Labour Party replaced the Liberals within a short period of time and that the issues at stake are greater than any we have faced in the past, outside of wartime.
In seeking a suitable conclusion I thought I might link an episode in English literature with a contemporary item of popular culture. For the former, when Wilfred Owen was reflecting upon the influences Siegfried Sassoon had had upon his writing of poetry he recalled the urgent exhortation given to 'Sweat your guts out. Sweat your guts out I say'. For the latter the current blockbuster film 'Independence Day', despite unlikely plot lines and a liberal amount of that brash self appreciation which is one of the endearing characteristics of our American cousins, contains a strong emotional message concerning the right of free peoples to self determination.
So I would say 'Sweat your guts out for the UKIP, sweat your guts out for the cause of British independence, sweat your guts out so than one day soon the British people will be able to celebrate their own Independence Day!'.
It can be done, it will be done and we shall do it.