Huge banks of cloud, stretched endlessly below as our plane began its decent, towards the south coast of England. It was odd to be returning to my place of birth with such a feeling of detachment, especially as we were playing Iceland that night in the football. Four days earlier, the country had voted to leave the European union, and I was still reeling from the after shocks.

Majorca, my spiritual home, seemed far away as the seat belt signs illuminated and a voice on the intercom warned us of an approaching ‘turbulent area’. I laughed at the irony of the announcement. From what I’d been hearing the storm below was far worse, threatening to even rip the country apart.

My dad had survived WWII, fighting to help keep our freedom. He was a pragmatist. Having witnessed death and destruction on an industrial scale, he welcomed the post war security, that partnership rather than division, brought with our European neighbours.

All right, he’d have the odd pop at the French and the bureaucracy of Brussels, but he always felt we were better off as part of the union – tweaking it a little if necessary, but never breaking it.

Subsequently I’ve always followed his sentiment, embracing the union – proud to be both British and European. It has added spice and colour to my life and allowed me to travel freely to many countries in the Euro zone, ingesting what they have to offer and allowing them to reciprocate in return.

Like many of us, I haven’t been a miss to the influx of so-called ‘economic migrants’ into our workforce. London, my home, is a mega ethnic melting pot and it’s changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Most of the builders I see or hear are Polish, my plumber is Albanian and accents from Europe and beyond are part of my every day life.

I don’t have a big problem with it. Most immigrants are here to work, they pay their way and largely integrate in our society. It’s evolution if you want and it’s being going on for a millennia.

Listening before my departure to The ‘Triumphant’ of Gove, Johnson and Farage’s rantings of ‘Rivers of blood’ and money for the NHS, I felt most of the electorate would see through the subterfuge. I wasn’t blind to the cries of disenfranchisement back home, but the lies of the ‘Out’ campaign even out stripped some of the whoppers coming from the remain campaign.

However the knock on effect of disappearing communities, opportunity, or even a voice, had seen ‘friends’ polarised  on social media, opinions entrenched. I sympathised with arguments about faceless bureaucrats and fears of shrinking economies, but saw it as a common problem for the Europe Union to rectify. There was a bigger picture emerging through the fog.

Not only were we part of the worlds 2nd largest economy (6th in our own right), and reliant on the EU for 50% of our trade, but we were also a kin to sharing mutual problems such as the migration crisis. Fundamentally besides of the bickering – that’s what families do, we seemed to be all in it together.

To me therefore, it was madness to consider reinventing the wheel and going it alone. The governments brutal austerity cuts and I’m all right Jack attitude, had not put us in a good light and I feared Brexit would see a further squeezing of the welfare state and more privatisation of our services.

I cared little about Cameron risking a legacy of failed leadership and two broken unions. His record against disabled people (I’m one of them) had been deplorable, but for once I begrudgingly fell in with the establishment the lesser of two evils, as I saw it on this occasion.

The fear of global melt down and the dangers of IDS – the sanctimonious hitman of the last Cameron administration, primed to inflict more misery on the disadvantaged, if it all went tits up, meant voting out for me, was a big no-no.