Phew. I’m glad that is over. I am no longer an MEP. Returning from Brussels post-Brexit is a joy. After all, the only reason I stood as an elected politician was to get sacked. But I have one more task in my official capacity: I am organising a conference with my MEP colleague Henrik Overgaard Nielsen in Stockport on 29 February.

I promised when elected back in May that a month after we left the EU I would facilitate a get-together in the North West region to ask What Next?, kick-starting an open exchange of views on how we can ‘change politics for good’. The agenda concentrates on what Brexit might mean for communities moving forward: on local issues, on the future for towns, coastal areas, the regions. But more than that, it tries to exemplify the way we might ‘do’ politics differently post Brexit. That is, can we use this radical change to reimagine democratic life beyond the Westminster bubble?