The battle for Brexit is not quite over; it is not quite won.  And the reason is simple – many people still do not understand the fundamental issues.  It is not about the Single Market – it is not about the economy – it is not about immigration – it is not about security, though all these aforementioned are concerns.

The fundamental issue is about the law of the land.  Do we in Great Britain make our own laws, or are we to be ruled by a foreign entity?  Now, it may be true that the EU is a trading partner, but in no way does that give, or should that give, this entity the power to trump the laws of Great Britain.  But that is precisely what has taken place.

Let us imagine that Great Britain makes a trading agreement with New Zealand – I have deliberately chosen a country at the opposite ends of the Earth.  Would this trading agreement then give us the power to make laws for the New Zealanders?  Of course not!  The Kiwis would be up in arms at the mere suggestion.  Yet by the Treaty of Lisbon, which was signed without the fine print being read, Great Britain suddenly found herself subject to EU laws that trumped and overrode British laws.  Such a situation was and is intolerable.  It meant we were being governed by two sets of laws.

Brussels could issue a regulation or a directive, and it became law for us in England without debate and without a by-your-leave.  These laws affected our farmers, our fisheries, our scientists, our woodlands, and so on and so forth.  The fact that some of these regulations were fairly beneficial is neither here nor there.  These regulations and directives effectively made the House of Commons a talking shop, with no power.  That our ex-prime minister, David Cameron, could have recommended such an abnegation of power to the people of this country is beyond belief.

So the principal issues were confused, perhaps because the politicians themselves were, and some still are, confused.  So some still argue that it is best for the economy that we belong.  Others argue that some scientific organizations and some farmers get grants from the EU.  Some are still concerned about access to the Single Market.  Another overriding concern is the huge number of European immigrants arriving in this country, at the same time that other Commonwealth immigrants are excluded or even sent home.

All these issues, however, pale into insignificance when set against the power to rule ourselves, which was set at nought by the Treaty of Lisbon.  Without the people and even the politicians realizing exactly what was happening, we surrendered the power to make our own laws, to govern our own seas, to subsidize whomsoever we decided, and in order to have tariff-free access to a Single Market, we agreed that our national coffers could be plundered to the tune of some £19 billion gross per annum, plus the odd million pound sterling, whensoever the EU was feeling the financial strain.

So everything we voted for revolves around one thing – and that is our independence and the power to rule ourselves.  Once we have that back in its entirety, then the questions of agriculture, of fisheries, of scientific support, and of immigration can all be solved in the one place from which they should never have departed – namely, the Houses of Parliament at Westminster.

For better or for worse, Brexit means self-rule.  Brexit means independence.