CORNWALL may well be a proud maritime nation, but it would appear in the last week our voters have sold us up the river. Or if you’d like to mix watery metaphors, we could be up a certain creek without a certain paddle.

Our county may have a great heritage, but over the last few years we have been a net recipient of EU funding – perhaps the UK as a whole sends more to Brussels than it receives, but the inverse is true in Cornwall – now all that has been voted away.

Admittedly, in Falmouth, Penryn, and Truro the electorate wanted to stay in Europe, but the rest of the county wanted out. Now our councillors and MPs are forced to go cap-in-hand to any future prime minister and ask them to make good on promises they never had the power to make in the first place. Because as Johnson, Farage et al have shown in the last few days, they may not keep all the promises they have made, whether in debate or plastered on the side of a battle bus.

This led some people – particularly in London – to mock Cornwall for voting out then asking to keep its cash. But they are hardly any better.

Those in the metropolitan bubble should consider that it is exactly this superior attitude, laughing at Wales, Cornwall, and the regions, that created a them-and-us feeling in the first place.

If London listened to us, instead of seeing us as picturesque but backwards, perhaps the world outside the M25 would have felt more engaged. If we had been able to trust politicians, and been less led by fear, and better informed, we might have voted for an EU that has arguably helped minority and regional recognition more than our government has.

Whether Brexit is a success or a failure, we all need to learn to work together now.