People’s Republic of Kent will finally be free

Nobody can say they weren’t warned. Months before June 23 2016 there were repeated warnings of the fate that awaited the union of the United Kingdom should Brexit triumph.

In the years since, the calls for independence from separatist voices have reached fever pitch, no longer a siren chorus but an unbearable cacophony.

Once a far-fetched, almost fantastical question of if – never, ever when – England divorced its nearest neighbour, a painful prospect ministers thought would never materialise; now it looks inevitable.

It was only a matter of time. Boris Johnson was given more last chances than any man deserves but never quite grasped the seriousness of their intent. In the end, who could blame them?

Yesterday the dream that was for so long