YOU DIDN'T VOTE FOR BREXIT DID YOU?

The funny thing was Julian had told me he had sat on the fence the night of the referendum right up until the last minute. That was until a close friend had sent him a 1975 Peter Shore clip on YouTube arguing against joining the Common Market at the Oxford Union in a debate with an indifferent looking Ted Heath who clearly didn't think the eloquent Labour speaker's heartfelt protests mattered one jot.

"Heath clearly knew what side his croissant was buttered and he was all for joining the grand European project," he explained to me, historical and political ignoranamus that I was back then and confess still am.

But never in a month of Thursdays did my typically contrarian friend believe that the outfall of a simple pencil marked cross inside a box would incite such venom from people he had previously considered to be reasonable. "That was the real eye opener," he said in a state of naive amazement.

"We're only a few weeks in and already it's been like a socially hostile equivalent of the parting of the Red Sea. Persona non Brexit has now become a way of life for me I'm afraid matey, much like having the mark of the beast etched upon your forehead. Good job you voted Remain. Much easier socially for you, I think."

It was their intolerance for democracy that was the common denominator between them all he ventured by which he meant Remainers. As a proud "pro-European" he observed the descent into Crucible-like mob derangement with a sense of casual amusement at first, but slowly came to believe these were the enemies of freedom the history books had warned him about although I personally thought he was being a little hyperbolic at the time.

"Think about it. The irony of seeing CEOs of multinational corporations, presidents of countries and banks, champagne socialists, luxury communists and neo-conservatives all clamouring with social media saturated hysterics to reverse the result of this referendum has created a perfect storm of cognitively dissonant madness for us all to behold."

"Don't include me in this. I didn't vote for Brexit," I said, fearing I might get lumped in with him on this hot topic issue for the nation. I was already struggling to get work and didn't need 'Brexit voter' as yet one more obstacle to prevent me from getting gainful employment.

I remember well the genuine incomprehension and indignation of Remainers that so many people had not voted the way the pro-European Union types had chosen to do in a referendum that appeared to shock them so utterly and profoundly to their collective core.

"What is this idea of Europe they felt so tribalistically about with all the fervour of the English nationalists they imagined to be stalking the streets at night with their St George flags and beer bellies?" Julian asked me, as if I might perhaps have the magic answer. I shook my head. He told me that he personally hoped it was just like his own romantic notion of Europe, of its classical music, its literature and cinema with all the diverse cuisines across the entire geographical land mass that they were so attached to and not the political and bureaucratic behemoth run by "boomer Hitler" types like Martin Schultz, Guy Verhofstadt and Donald Tusk who all sounded like comic Nazi villains in some adventure movie to me.

"Alas, it's this notion of political union that they're so weirdly and religously devoted to and not the former. It appears they wanted the flags, the anthem and the sense of belonging that they accuse the bogeymen nationalists of. They genuinely feel a genuine allegiance to these Eurocrats in grey - your Verfhofstadts and Juncker types, to say nothing of Blair and Alistair Campbell-type nutters."

I could see it was all getting to Julian a bit. He preferred a far easier life where he didn't have to justify his life or his beliefs to any great extent on these matters. His favourite pastime was reading 'Three Men In A Boat" in one of his beloved Oxford haunts with a pint of guinness and boasting about writing his very own comic novel one day if he could ever be bothered to get round to it.

Somehow I did feel I was slowly starting to understand his position a little better. Ironically for Julian, he believed that the pro-European position was to vote for Brexit to protect European culture. He argued that once the entirety of Europe became a homogenised political union there would be no cultural diversity within its individual nations left to celebrate.

"It will just be a one size fits all, ironed out operating software brought to you by the technocrats who want to control our lives."

"That's probably inevitable anyway, surely?" I added.

"Perhaps."

Claiming that all the great European culture he adored had all been created long before there was ever a notion of a European Union trade bloc anyway, he seemed quite upset about being accused of being some sort of xenophobe in recent weeks.

"What's wrong with just wanting Italy to be Italy, France to be France and Germany to be, well ..."

As he sat at numerous dinner parties and cafe tables (some of which I'd attended with him), he had come to realise he was becoming nuanced for the first time in his life in his way of thinking about political and cultural matters. So many others around him had reverted to pantomime finger stabbing at those they believed to have destroyed their future. I could see he was trying to be clever by creating a niche position from which to justify his vote for Brexit. He now claimed he was a pro-European Brexiteer and that this self appointed title had created a schism for those trying to easily pigeon hole him with the phantom tub thumpers who he personally found to be more prevalent on the Remainer side.

"You know, those FBPE types on Twitter who wear their European nationalism like a proud badge similar to curry-eating football fans but wearing Laura Ashley jumpers and eating chard from Waitrose instead."

One of the last times I saw him back then in '16 or was it '17 he told me he felt not dissimilar to the little boy in Roald Dahl's 'The Witches', fearing he would be sniffed out by the Remainers at any given time.

"I'm telling you, some of these so-called rational people have lost their fucking minds. I've had neighbours ignore me in the street, family members refuse to come for Christmas. It's nuts. And what they don't realise is they're behaving with the same rabidly ideological and nationalistic characteristics as those 'Little Britain' types they so greatly fear. They're intolerant of the other side of the argument, not unlike the Nazis they so lazily accuse us Brexiteers of being. They render the accusation meaningless in the end like so many of these weapons in the woke war of identity politics."

"Take a breath. You're over heating."

I topped up his water from the green Dartington glass pitcher I rather admired in the cafe we'd randomly ended up in.

"Why can they not see they're projecting onto others what they have become? Nationalist internationalists I call them, if that paradox doesn't break their brains which I'm sure it would if I tried to explain it to them. Case in point and forgive me I repeat myself - they, too, want a national anthem, they, too, want to belong to a sense of shared idenity as a group and they, too, want to ignore the howls of protest from the other side and ignore democracy in action. Now who's being a Nazi?"

Attempting to steer the conversation in another direction, I asked him what else he'd been up to.

"Trying not to think the world is against me. It's all been getting a bit East Germany round here, old boy! Now I know how the hobbits felt when they had the eye of Sauron suddenly shining full force upon their curly little heads. It's terrifying. You don't want to rile these sweaty faced academics and angry looking women who bear a distinct similarity to my old headmistress bearing down on you. It's a bloody nightmare!"

"Why did you vote for it then, you idiot?"

Looking at me with an almost self-conscious look of pride, he took a sip of tea before answering.

"I had to. Remember when the Rebel Alliance had that one shot at destroying the Death Star?"

I nodded, although I couldn't honestly say I was the biggest of Star Wars fans.

"Well, just like Luke Skywalker in his X-wing I had to fire the shot along the trenches along with seventeen million others. It was a once in a lifetime chance. A prison break par excellence. The Great Escape, if you will."

Being agnostic for the most part on the subject of Brexit, I'll admit it was hard not to be a little swept up by Julian's passion.

"It's been rough of late. But at least I've met some amazing new people."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes. I've been amazed at the eclectic band of brothers and sisters who I've discovered covertly were also secret Brexiteers. Academics, intellectuals, all races, sizes, age and gender, no mere sweaty gammons are they. Now I can imagine what it must have been like to be homosexual back in the 1950's. Each time I met with one of these strangers it felt like sanity had been restored momentarily and that we could breathe again. There was this recognition in our solidarity which we often cemented with a handshake as if part of a secret society. Oh yes. They walk among us. The 17.2."

And with that he grabbed his coat and left me to finish off the Guardian crossword which I was struggling to complete.

It was on the eve of Britain finally leaving the European Union three years later on the 31st January 2020 that I caught up with him again in the Red Lion pub near Westminster after a considerable time where we'd not seen each other. He looked well, although he was now concerned about some virus from China that was headed our way.

"Brexit will look like nothing after this."

I had no real idea what he was talking about and as I knew he could be prone to histrionics at times ignored his fears for the most part.

"You know they're not even going to have Big Ben bonging tonight. It's a pre-record that's going to be amplified through a stereo system. More humilation of the people who dared to vote against the machine."

"You're still banging the drum for Brexit then," I said.

"Well, we'll see. The nay sayers will probably never really let us leave. They'll talk the country down until we're so broken and demoralised that we end up re-joining, somehow. But if we hold our nerve and don't let the bastards grind us down, we'll see it through in the end."

Laughing to myself at his steadfast conviction after all these years, I clinked pint glasses with him and raised a toast.

"Here's to getting off the fence, eh?"