‘Of course, there will be no air quality now,’ said a friend, shaking her head over my support for Brexit.
‘You what?’
‘Air quality,’ she said. ‘Or green belt. Or Sites of Special Scientific Interest, preserving the countryside and wildlife… All those really good EU regulations have all gone now.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ I started to feel exasperated, inwardly thinking, ‘Uh-oh, here goes another friendship…’
‘All those EU regulations safeguarding everything. All gone. No more air-quality rules. No more SSSIs.’
‘So you’re saying Brexiteers have ruined the air now, are you? That’s where we are up to with the scaremongering? No more air now we’re out of the EU.’
‘Well, I’m just saying…’
We were riding our horses through the woods so this was all going to get very tricky if I objected further. The last time I stormed off while on a hack with a group of girlfriends, after a silly row broke out, I had to turn a reluctant pony round to face away from her pony friends and try to make her canter off.
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