Suppose a couple of homeowners decide they need a new family home.

Before they move out they would ensure they had somewhere to move into.

And they would be clear about what that new home should have.

Maybe it will need an extra bedroom, a larger garden, a kitchen big enough to eat in or off-street parking for two cars.

It might need to be close to workplaces, schools, shops and other amenities, be within walking distance of a bus stop or handy to a railway station.

And if they can't find one that ticked all the boxes they might choose to stay put for now.

That is my problem with Brexit. It is just under six months until Britain leaves the European Union.

We have been in the departure lounge for two and a quarter years now. At 11pm UK time on Friday, March 29 we'll be off.

Some people are delighted and some are horrified. I just don't know where we're moving to.

And neither apparently does the Government. Theresa May's Chequers plan will give no clue, as it's been rejected both by the rabid Europhobes in her party and the EU in Salzburg.

But something Boris Johnson said about it gave me an idea.

He said the Chequers plan would be "substantially worse than the status quo”.

In other words, we are better off now, as EU members, than we would be under her plan. So why don't we just stay?

Saying so can get you in all kinds of trouble. MPs who believed we might be better off remaining as we are, and judges who questioned the legality of the referendum, were labelled "traitors" and "enemies of the people" by the Daily Mail at it most aggressive.

But this is supposed to be a free country. That means we have the right to disagree.

It doesn't make you a traitor or an enemy of the people to take a different view from its editors.

I suppose they would argue that it is defying the will of the people as expressed in the 2016 referendum.

Bear in mind that the result was pretty close. Just under 52 per cent of voters opted for leave and just over 48 per cent for remain.

And since then there has been a distinct shift in popular opinion towards remain. The latest poll shows that 50 per cent of people now back remaining and 43 per cent are for leaving, with the rest undecided.

Clearly some Brexit supporters now no longer think it's such a good idea.

So isn't there a case for a second referendum? Theresa May says it would be "a betrayal of democracy", which is bit rich coming from her.

We were supposed to have fixed-term, five-year parliaments. But she re-ran the 2015 general election early, in 2017. This referendum is going to have far longer-term effects than any general election.
If the Brexiteers are so convinced of the strength of their case, then they should have nothing to fear from a second referendum.

So why are they so firmly against it? We can draw our own conclusions.

It's not just companies that are deserting the Britain they want. It's people too.

Since the decision there has been a massive increase in Britons applying for citizenship of other EU countries.

In 2017, a total of 12,994 Brits obtained the nationality of one of the other member states. In 2016 there were 5,025 and in 2015 there were only 1,800.

Anyone with one parent born on the island of Ireland, north or south, can apply for citizenship of the Republic of Ireland.

And there's been an upsurge in applications for Republic passports from residents of the north - even from ardent unionists determined that the province should stay British.

Ireland's foreign affairs department has had to recruit extra staff to deal with them all.

Of course some of our Brexiteers are already firmly ensconced in other EU countries. Former chancellor Nigel Lawson lives in south-west France, two of Nigel Farage's children have dual British-German citizenship. and a city firm founded by Jacob Rees-Mogg has just established a base in Ireland.

It's easy to extol the virtues of Brexit when it isn't going to affect you.

The Scots, Northern Irish, Londoners and Gibraltarians never voted for this and resent being dictated to by the rest of the country. So it's turning Britain into an increasingly disunited kingdom.

Quoting "there'll always be an England" in defence of Brexit is to overlook the fact that there'll always be a Scotland and Northern Ireland as well.

At the moment we're hearing a lot about the apparent increase in self-harm among teenagers.

What is more troubling is the collective act of self-harm that comes from leaving the EU - as many of us are beginning to realise.