“Any spare change for an English accent?”

It wasn’t me being addressed by the Scouse voice. The homeless man looking for some money was directing his comment towards my manager and good friend Sam. Sam is ginger of hair and beard; my nickname for him is “Wall of Ginger”. So white of skin is my manager I often joke that rather than being Caucasian he is better described as “transparent”. Wall of Ginger looked as shocked as I felt.

We were enjoying a pint outside a pub in Fitzrovia, a few minutes stroll from the melting pot of Oxford Circus. Whatever else you might think of London, while it has its issues, it also shines as a beacon for all that an international world city can be when it comes to diversity. I suppose that’s why the curious question posed by the beggar jarred so awkwardly. I felt compelled to query his question.

“Buddy, I’m not sure I get your point. Why mention your accent? Do you think you are more likely to get change if you aren’t English?”

“Yeah," he said, "the English get nothing. Nothing. In our own country.”

His response was spat out at me, syllable by syllable. I looked into his eyes. He actually believed what he was saying. Ironic, since I couldn’t believe what he was just about to say…

“Brexit has already sorted England out. I’ve got a flat to move into next week. That’s cos of Brexit.”

It felt churlish to correct him about the fact that Brexit wasn’t an England-only phenomenon; it felt equally obtuse to try and explain that the ramifications and repercussions of Brexit would not be felt for quite some time; he would have got his flat regardless of the vote on June 23 2016. I tried to calm myself and the situation.

“The most important thing is that you’re going to have a roof over your head.”

Another homeless man came over to attempt to help keep the peace.

“Mate, you would understand if you was born here,” he said.

The irony. I was standing about six miles from where I had been born - Acton, West London. (This is something I try not to admit in public). The tag team of tedious continued as the Scouser picked up the narrative.

“Anyone can come here and get whatever they want.”

He then responded with finality, the way someone does when they believe they have won both the battle and the war.

“But now, now - England is looking after its own. Finally.”

This point of view represents everything I have spent a lifetime fighting, a fight that has been woven into the fabric of the post-Scottish Referendum age, a fight that must now continue as the mis-sold lies of the Brexiteers drag an increasingly unwilling dis-United Kingdom out of the European Union and into the virgin wilderness. But I was also acutely aware that this guy had been sleeping rough, living on his wits and had been shunned and ignored in the world’s fifth wealthiest country. Wouldn’t you feel overlooked? But to suggest that he suffered unduly because he was a white man, born and brought up in England just didn’t feel right. The contagion of blaming other people, the wrong people for society’s ills has become something of a national sport south of the border.

I have had contact with the homeless for over thirty years, from the school soup kitchen on George Square to my daily dealings with the ignored and invisible whose numbers have swollen since austerity and the coalition cuts.

And while I have most definitely felt a discernible shift in the civic culture of England on my numerous trips back and forth from the four quarters of the country, London itself seemed somehow separate from the Little Englander mentality, the misinformed, misjudged, wave-ruling Britannia posturing that defines a certain component of the legion of Leavers.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of my encounter with the Scouser the good news is that, as you read this, he should have a roof over his head, all the better as we approach winter. I just hope that the Brexit he so proudly and patriotically proclaims will allow him to keep that roof exactly where it is. I have no doubt that should things take an economic turn for the worse, the Scouser will know exactly who to blame.