IF anything has come out of this Brexit mess of potage we’re enduring, it surely is that the scales have fallen from our eyes.

What was left of our political innocence has been violated on the altar of our representatives’ brutal disregard for all that’s honourable and trusting.

No matter how much one had endured in loyally supporting the party of one’s hopes there was always the bedrock that never shifted – the unyielding core values, core principles of the whole.

Good, decent men and women have always held firm to that even as politicians waxed and waned through election and misfortune.

Of course, those who’ve considered themselves better educated, better informed, have always considered their cynicism to be a weapon best employed to counter disappointment.

But even the most cynical have been stunned, I would suggest, by the nonchalant disregard of any truth, any attempt to disguise the lies now peddled by some of the highest in the land.

Presiding over all is a perfidious, self-serving, twisting, twisted parody of a Prime Minister, prepared to throw country and family under the bus of his monstrous ambition.

Fish stinks from the head down. Though not necessarily in this case where the forms that cling to him rot away in their own stew pot of fevered jostling for position.

I think of the minor players like Mark Francois, Steve Baker, Bill Cash, Andrew Bridgen, Nigel Evans, Liz Truss – I could go on and on – who have shouldered their way before the TV cameras, glowing with their moment of fame/infamy.

They often parrot sheer nonsense which will have been disproved before their words fall to the stage.

I want to shout: ‘We see you. We see you.’ For do these fools not realise we are in the age of instant checks, instant playback, instant tick sheets where past words are transmitted within seconds?

The so-called official opposition, the Labour Party, is little better. Its leader twists, turns, dissembles, gazes rheumy eyed into a socialist world that can only be born of the destruction of the present system, and like Johnson, turns for advice to a shadowy, hollow-eyed, grey faced so-called mastermind.

And Jo Swinson. Ah. We instinctively know that with her earnest faux-smile and accent she will swim around the political shallows, weaving ever downwards and closer to the bigger fish who will swallow her as a canapé to their dubious main course.

And so, to the SNP. They have two formidable politicians who happen to be women – Joanna Cherry, QC and Nicola Sturgeon.

I am not of the school that believes that women are far finer creatures than men and would bring the world into a glorious, happy clappy future.

Priti Patel for starters. Kate Hoey. Andrea Leadsom, etc etc. Need one say more?

I know women are deadlier than the male….all secret services advise: shoot the woman first.

But these two, along with Anna Soubry, Jess Phillips and Yvette Cooper at least face the camera with a clear gaze and an answer to any question posed.

They do not play the public for fools; they still hold to their own bedrock but above all, respect the electorate, not use them in an inter-house competition where winning is all.

As I write the FM is giving her conference speech. She tells her audience ‘we will not win independence the Brexit way.’ It will be done by inspiration and persuasion.

Already my twitter feed is filling up from all corners of the UK and further afield with admiration for her. Many, mainly from England, say: we need a Nicola Sturgeon.

They say it, obviously with no love or interest in an independent Scotland, but because they like her straight, non-dissembling replies in interviews. She answers the questions put to her.

With the charlatans in power and opposition, they’ve forgotten that questions can actually be answered. It’s refreshing and reminds them that politics can be again what they once believed it was.

Behind stage it is clear that there are disputes and divergences of opinions of the way forward. Bitter words have been uttered. There are many, within the party and within the public, who are deeply divided by the FM.

That is fine. That is healthy argument. Brexit surely has shown that it is not simply ‘my party, right or wrong.’ Not even ‘my country, right or wrong.’

I don’t know where we’ll be when you read this. How often have I written this these turbulent months? The fat lady may have retired, once again, to the wings, or she’s finally singing her aria on stage.

The FM may have have calmed her fractious, headstrong wings … she may not.

Jo Swinson may still be shuffling to get into place beside Johnson and Farage will be erupting – of that we can be sure.

One thing only is certain. For the public, when innocence is lost, a bitter taste is left and contempt seeps through, infecting all parties, all ideologies.

When the bedrock is cracked open … the real nasties crawl out. Too dystopian? God, I hope so, but it’s only Tuesday in my column.