Leaving the lizards behind... or coming home to them?

I have been, as those of you who are Facebook friends may be aware, on holiday in Cuba, a trip which has, from a personal perspective, not gone as smoothly as might have been hoped. Personal misadventure leading to a badly gashed elbow and a jarred shoulder, followed by three days interrupted by (presumed) food poisoning, rather cut into the trip. Nonetheless, the weather was good, the wildlife friendly and the resort... well, not as good as perhaps it should have been, would be fair. Ros is at least well-rested for the campaigning ahead, which is probably the most important thing.

Our resort had a fine collection of curly-tailed lizards, who haunted the rocks and crevices of the landscaping in our resort, and were seemingly quite content to be photographed. The pelicans that cruised the shoreline, looking for fish, glided by in a manner that implied that they were doing this for our benefit between essential refuelling, and the other birds were colourful and inquisitive. One species in particular seems to have learned that sugar packets may be valuable, pulling them out of their little holders and scattering them around. Don't ask me whether they know what the contents are - evolution doesn't appear to have progressed quite that far yet.

But now I'm back to a Britain about to determine its future in the world. Naturally, I'll be voting 'remain', and will be campaigning accordingly.

It is noticeable so far that the people who have been telling us for a couple of decades that we would be better off outside the European Union have been so busy moaning that they've never quite got round to working out what the implications of Brexit are. 

Today, for example, Bernard Jenkin claims that the critical Article 50 provisions need not apply. They are, of course, provisions of a treaty that we signed, and are binding unless both sides agree to an amendment. Of course, we need not adhere to them, the sort of negotiating strategy that the diplomatic equivalent of cads and bounders would implement. Naturally, by behaving in an untrustworthy manner at that stage, we could expect such behaviour to be overlooked when it came to negotiating all of the treaties on trade and citizen access that Bernard assumes would follow...

And, of course, Boris. Two weeks ago, he seemed to say that engagement was better than estrangement. Now, he's changed his mind so as to maximise his leadership potential in the event of a 'leave' vote. I have to wonder why I should trust the judgement of someone whose political positioning is, predominantly, populist in nature and who is, generally, as slippery as an eel.

It seems that I didn't leave the lizards behind me...