After retiring twelve years ago, Geoff Harper moved to Nightingale Close in Ashford in Kent — ‘for the quiet life’.

His house is near St. Mary’s, an old Norman church that overlooks twenty-seven acres of idyllic farmland where bluebirds sing, wildflowers bloom and butterflies cavort. Verily, ’tis the Garden of England!

That same twenty-seven acres has now been bought by the government, without any consultation, as a post-Brexit lorry park for 2000 HGVs waiting to process their export paperwork.

Geoff voted for Brexit, and is trying hard to understand how Vote Leave’s promises of cutting red tape have led to lorries thundering past his house 24/7. A house, moreover, whose value has just plummeted considerably. He would very much like to blame the EU for all of this in some way, but a sinking feeling in his stomach tells him the discomforting truth. He’s been had.