Five years ago on this very day Britons not so much as trudged but gleefully skipped to the polling stations in order to vote in the Referendum on leaving the European Union. Much to the disgust of the woefully out of touch metro-Left and the awful anti-independence Liberal Democrat Party, the Leave side prevailed. For the first time since the early 1970’s, Britain was on a path to independence. We could make our own laws without reference to Brussels and Parliament would be expected to actually debate and legislate rather than just rubber stamp edicts handed down from the EU.

The losing Remain campaign which was rejected by the British people, fought a rear guard action after the Referendum to keep the UK in the EU but they failed to overturn the democratic mandate to leave. The Remain campaign by failing to accept the result of the Referendum showed themselves up for what they are, which is anti-democrats.

It’s plain to see that none of the scare stories put out by the Remainers has come true. Trade with the EU and elsewhere still goes on, Britain has not descended into anarchy and Britons have not been afflicted by the new strain of mutant gonorrhoea that the Remainers said would devastate Britain if we were not connected to EU medical bureaucracy.

Since officially leaving the EU Britain has not collapsed. Wages are rising in those industries that previously eschewed British employees in favour of migrants and Britain’s government has been building trade links across the world. However the most important outcome of leaving the EU has been Britain’s coronavirus vaccination programme. Because we are independent we could fund research into vaccines, create them and distribute them in a much more nimble and efficient way than was possible for those nations still trapped within the EU. Yes I have many disagreements as to how the UK government has managed things like lockdowns and the damage that these have done to the economy, but as vaccination is the only way out of the covid problem, I have nothing but praise for how the government has created and rolled out the covid vaccines.

Since leaving the EU Britain has shown that it can succeed on its own, without being shackled to the EU. We have removed ourselves from a fractious and sclerotic political entity that is the EU, an entity that has more in common with the defunct authoritarian inward looking Austro-Hungarian Empire than the dynamic and outward looking United States of America.

The coronavirus pandemic has showed the EU at its absolute worst in terms of inefficiency with regards to its inability to effectively fund, develop and distribute vaccines. It is little wonder that even those in my circle of friends who joined in with the BBC’s Brexit bashing, are now praising the Brexit which has delivered.