Lugwadine, the last Liberal Democrat in captivity and European thoughts.. speculations in my 58th year

While away to celebrate my 58^th birthday we happened to stay at a lovely B and B at Lugwadine near Hereford. On the Saturday morning we came to a large kitchen table and around it was six people. We quickly realised that one of our number was the only surviving Liberal Democrat MEP. I had joked with a friend on the Friday that knowing my luck I would run into someone of a political nature.

After talking over breakfast I sensed a real fear among about June 23. Middle England is unsure about the way it will vote/ The loathing of the political elite is being projected onto the European Union. There is a real danger that we will drift to Brexit. I can sense the mood out there and the Cameron revelations this week hardly helps.

I see people`s eyes glaze over when I talk about the EU protecting workers rights and the environment. The electorate is in the mood to kick the Establishment through the vote on June 23. if we go it will take us into the arms of a narrow, nationalistic right ring, prejudiced rabble that is far worse than any political elite we have yet met. If anyone is to save the situation it will not come from the large corporations that are the “Remain” campaign. It will be saved by Jeremy Corbyn, Caroline Lucas, Leanne Wood and others.

It is the working class of Neath and South Wales, the poor the disadvantaged who will suffer the most if we leave. The funding that has flowed into Wales will not be made up by the post Brexit Prime Minister Boris Johnson. I have seen the ex Tories that are UKIP they are pulling off the greatest act of hypnotism ever attempted upon the poor, the excluded the socially outcast by the pendulum of fear. They use racism, a partial fear of the other, separation and exclusion and they are winning.

Every time I go to England I see how clearly it is a different country, wealthy and unlike the world we know in South Wales. They are moving away rapidly from the culture we have in Wales. I joked to the table that morning that perhaps it was tine for England to leave and let Wales and Scotland become a new nation. The humour fell on stony ground.

After the Liberal Democrat MEP left I learnt that her husband was a distinguished Emiritus Professor of Nocturnal Apes and their habits. I reflected that there were more nocturnal apes than there were Liberal Democrats and I had met the last Liberal Democrat MEP In captivity.