Of all the bilge spouted on Brexit by the government and their puppet-masters in the right-wing press - and there's plenty of it - the piece that makes me the most angry is the idea that leaving the EU liberates us to become 'Global Britain'.
I suspect this Tory erotic fantasy is borne out of an unshakable belief that the world and Britain was a brighter place when the sun never set on the Empire and our ports were full of great ships exporting Victorian genius and values throughout the world. In a nutshell: Britain and the British are best and know best.
And if you don't believe me, just take a look at the language used on the front pages of the Mail, the Sun and the Times today. The new Iron Lady crushing Johnny Foreigner for having the temerity not to dance to Albion's tune. It's as offensive as it is unhelpful, and to many of us - 48% of the voting electorate, don't forget, not a small minority - it's embarrassing, humiliating even.
There's so much wrong with this, it's difficult to know where to start. But explain this to me. How exactly will my children, and the rest of us, be more 'global' after they've lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries? We're not in the fast lane heading for Global Britain, we're on a steam train to Little England.
The Tory view of the world was perfectly encapsulated by David Davis this morning, who said: "If our country can deal with World War Two, it can deal with this." Later, Clown-in-Chief Boris Johnson was it also, to all intents and purposes accusing our European 'partners' of employing Nazi tactics in potential negotiations. (And you may well believe this is an extreme interpretation of the toxic vomit from Westminster's liar-in-residence, this is how Europe sees it.)
Again, where to start? This is such a loaded statement - I think we can all imagine what the odious Mail will do with it - but three things stand out. First these two jingoists are comparing a political and administrative process with a 70 year old conflict in which 10s of millions died. Is that a helpful analogy? Second, the inference (that is all over the front pages) is that European politicians are the enemy again - Mussolini and Hitler in the guise of Hollande and Merkel. Who runs a negotiation like this? How on earth is this going to help us secure markets for our goods, free passage for our people?
Third and finally - just stop and think about what Davis said, because I wonder if it isn't some sort of Freudian warning. During the Second World War, the people of Britain lived through serious deprivation, food shortages, in permanent fear and afterward suffered the impact of 10 years of economic gloom. And they know, they know, it's going to be rough and it's going to hurt (not them, of course), and they're doing it anyway.
It's total madness, but the baying hounds in the (offshore-owned) press are lapping it up, while the poisonous nutters from UKIP welcome the Tories onto their political territory. What has happened to us?
Throughout the debate that has followed the June 23 referendum, the Remain discourse has been that May and the three ministers for Brexit (Johnson, Davis and the disgraced former defence secretary Liam Fox) have no idea what they're doing. In one sense I don't doubt that this is true. Ian Dunt, who has brilliantly covered the UK's march over the Brexit cliff edge, covers off the obvious and not so obvious difficulties in the government's lunatic strategy here at Politics.co.uk.
I don't think they have the first idea how tough what they're getting into is going and they certainly have no idea how it ends. So with little more than a few Dad's Army soundbites and some insults slung across the Channel they're marching 65m people towards total economic uncertainty at the same time as restricting their freedom of movement. It won't end well.
But I don't accept the idea that they don't know what they're doing. They know exactly what they're doing. They're doing what the Tories have always done: putting the party first, and to hell with the rest. Europe has been a running sore for the Conservatives for as long as I've been following politics, and time and time again it has taken them to the edge of civil war. The survival instinct is strong and so they've always pulled back from the brink, but here now is the perfect exit strategy - and if you have to dispense with the single market to achieve it - so be it.
And at the same time they're also being given an opportunity to lance another major boil: UKIP and the Romanians.
I've not seen a credible report yet that suggests that European immigration is anything other than a net positive for the UK economy. But every good horror story needs a bogeyman and the disgraceful Leave campaign knew exactly who that should be. The mythical hordes of Turks heading across the borders and the eastern Europeans who live and work in the UK, pay their taxes and contribute to society.
And so with the slogan 'the people have spoken', the Tories - no better than Farage's poundshop fascists at this point - have stolen UKIP's clothing and destroyed their European problem in one fell swoop. And if the UK economy and millions of jobs and lives are put at risk in the process - as much objective analysis suggests - then what of it? The Party comes first, always and forever. And with the hapless Jeremy Corbyn having ceded official opposition duties to a combination of Gary Lineker and LBC's James O'Brien, they can do it with impunity.
And what of Britain? I'm sorry to say I'm ashamed of where we are, what we've become. A smaller, sadder, insular and nasty place. I used to be proud of our openness, tolerance and decency. But just at the precise moment it became critical for us to present that face to the world ahead of whatever carnage the next US president delivers, we have withdrawn throwing insults at our partners. It's hard to look at my Spanish neighbours, or German and French colleagues, in the face when they ask what's going on? In Spain, we've known nothing but a generous welcome and kindness. Evidence suggests that those going the other way are finding an entirely different environment.
It is no exaggeration to say I am filled with fury and despair and impotence at the events of the last six months and the prospect of the next six years. I take some solace in the fact that things rarely are as good or as bad as one thinks. But that's not much is it? I know one thing, and perhaps this is the scariest of all, home - England, Britain, the UK - no longer looks, sounds or feels like home. Fortunately, for now, Madrid does. Perhaps it's time to start thinking about that as a permanent state.
With thanks to the brilliant Valeria Cafagna.