NOT that long ago I wrote about living with a constant low-lying swirl of rage and irritability. It was, of course, to do with Brexit and, if anything, it has got worse, becoming a silent scream of impotent angst.

You may say, rightly, that I have too much time on my hands to scour the internet, read all the papers, tune in to Parliament live, and you’re probably quite right.

Two English friends, in favour of Brexit although living in France, were here the other day and, in different circumstances, it could have come to blows.

I am beyond rational discussion in the face of ignorance, for that is what I hear when confronted with tired cliches, demolished week after week.

In fact I am beyond stating a case for staying within the EU; if anyone cannot see beyond the charlatans peddling a right wing coup, then hell mend them.

Give me one, just one, positive case for leaving the EU and I will listen to you. Hello? Anyone there? No, because there isn’t one.

I am beyond being calm, measured, understanding. I have no empathy with those who are set on a course to destroy their own country in the ludicrous terms of ‘sovereignty, taking back control, will of the people.’

Usually when on a rant, I semi-apologise that I am viewing all through a telescope from another country.

And it’s true, as I’ve said time after time; I’m no longer linked into the nuances, the pub talk, the flow of the country I left behind.

I’m not in tune, or discussion, with the many people I knew or met daily or listened to in overheard chats, overheated arguments.

I admit I sit, a silent watcher, crouched over a Mac, trying to make sense and gather thoughts via social media and websites.

But today I’m not apologising any more. Life ‘back there’ doesn’t cease because one lives in La France Profonde. If anything it intensifies.

Particularly when Brexit is about to destroy so many lives in this/your country, and the one that is mine now for the immigrants who have made it so.

Distance, the telescope, whatever, actually casts the cold eye and makes one sit back in shock at all that is taking place.

Distance makes me appalled and saddened, deeply saddened, at a Press that is often partisan, not forensically detached.

Distance makes me pick over every argument and find the Brexiteers not only wanting, but shameless in their headlong rush to create a lie.

This week I watched live as Parliament ‘debated’ the amendments sent back from the Lords. Debated? Hardly, with two days to do so.

Perhaps after all my years here I have become a little foreign – a little questioning in my appreciation of democracy in action.

During the first devolution debate I reported for the BBC from the Palace of Westminster. That is a tale to be told for another day, but let me say I was shocked and often disgusted by all I witnessed there.

When, with instinctive journalistic verve I wanted to report certain facts, I was warned off in no uncertain terms. Told that was how things were.

And told that I couldn’t expect airtime and not to be so naïve about life in the House.

A touch enthralled about being in the centre of power I acquiesced and convinced myself that my nightly Reporting Scotland reports were honest at least. And they were.

I closed my eyes to the rest.

So, I was not surprised in a way to watch the jeering and hissing over the amendments that came before the House last week.

That’s what they do, although, since the introduction of cameras, they have become a touch more circumspect.

And then, we had the non-discussion of Scotland’s devolved powers and an arrogance and disdain that led to a walkout.

I have said, many times, in this column that I do not feel it right to discuss Scottish politics.

But there comes a moment.

I found the disrespect in the House towards Scotland and its representatives beyond all acceptable behaviour. And, like many commentators I believe that was the day the fight for independence took a giant leap forward.

On display was all the contempt that England has shown over and over again to its neighbours. Some of the statements made about Ireland and its border issue have been breathtaking in the ignorance and insensitivity of those making them.

By the end of this debacle England will stand alone, Ireland will be united and Scotland will be a nation again.

I hold no political allegiances, have never and will never take membership in any party, but were I in Scotland and asked to vote in an independence referendum, I would not hesitate.

While the English Government peddles hate and closed doors, all I see coming from Scotland is inclusion and social care.

I see a country looking to a future, a future in Europe, not a past founded on race memories of a colonial shame.

And I would say cut yourself loose – run for the hills while you can. The ship is sinking but you don’t have to go down with it.

The time has come.