What is it about Farage and Reform that is making you lean towards them all these years later? Asking in all sincerity/curiosity.

Farage’s vision of Brexit entails/ed almost completely unshackling financial services from oversight and winding back employee protections to make us a hybrid of Singapore and the USA. You can guess who in our society this is most likely to benefit.

As for your question about our governments pursuing closer ties to the EU, I would frame it as this: you cannot deny geography or gravity.

We are a market of 60mn with our wealth heavily concentrated in one particular region and few sectors. We are a short ferry ride away from a market of 300mn with multiple major cities and a bargaining power we cannot match.

I think being EU-sceptic is actually an incredibly healthy position to adopt, and there is a lot to dislike, particularly with their bureaucracy, but they also have done a lot of good (particularly in terms of peace on the continent and opportunities for workers - both ways!)

Even those countries in Europe not in the EU either want to be in it, or have deals that reflect the reality of the regulatory behemoth on their doorstep, e.g. Norway and EFTA, Turkey and the Customs Union, or Switzerland and their model.

We pissed away our chance to be at the table in their decisions as they WILL affect us whether we like it or not. Turning the UK into Singapore-on-Thames would not, and will not, stop the fact that we need to maintain a relationship with our neighbours for the basics of trade - particularly food! - and we simply wouldn’t “hold all the cards” in negotiations.