Almost recovered after my whirlwind visit to London for the Hampstead and Highgate count in the early hours of Friday morning where I’d stood as parliamentary candidate for the Rejoin EU Party. I achieved 532 votes which, I was reassured, was not a bad result for a small party with a fraction of the major parties’ resources. I’d hoped to get into four figures while realistically acknowledging this would be unlikely given the national mainstream media rarely provides coverage to small parties.

I’d learned only a few days before that the count for Holborn and St Pancras was being held at the same venue which meant I got to be in the room when Labour Party leader and Prime Minister in waiting, Keir Starmer delivered his speech. The atmosphere was quite electric and I resisted the strong urge to intervene over comments, as reported on the day before polling, about being “really clear about not rejoining the EU, the single market or the customs union – or [allowing a] return to freedom of movement” within his lifetime.

There is a time and a place to voice justifiable objections. This evidently was not it.

Starmer had finally acknowledged the elephant in the room by trying to kill it stone dead. Within an hour I’d take to the same stage as the representative candidate of a relatively unknown party defending our right to regain EU Citizenship along with freedom of movement and all the other rights and benefits stolen when the UK was forced out of the European Union. I felt enormously privileged to be there and yet the message of rejoin that should have been front and centre as we were finally to rid ourselves of the worst government in the country’s history was reduced to the fringes and upheld by a small party fielding 26 candidates on a budget of next to zero.

Later on Friday new Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivered his first speech outside No. 10 Downing Street. Starmer would not have been my choice for national leader given his reneging on being a strong voice for rejoining the European Union amongst other things but I was encouraged by what appeared to be genuine commitment to improve the lives of people in this country.

Of particular note was “… your government should treat every single person in this country with respect.”

It is not respectful to refuse to accept a person’s identity nor to force someone to accept inappropriate gendered references on personal identification documents.

Sir Keir Starmer, our new Prime Minister, can expect an approach from me in the near future with an expectation of change to the UK’s discriminatory passport system where options are currently restricted to gendered M/F and to adopt the progressive neutral X as other countries have done.

And I’ll not let him off the hook about our rejoining the EU.