I'M WRITING this in the House of Commons Library. I’ve just been in, with other new MPs, to see Mr Speaker in his very grand house.

We sat round a long Gothic table with the Thames framed by high arched windows. He served us shortbread. “I went out and bought it especially,” he explained.

The new speaker clearly loves his job. He was bursting with energy. The speaker’s secretary – dressed in black knee-breeches, silk stockings, a frock coat, and a cravat – sat by his side. The speaker’s secretary’s secretary didn’t seem to have been invited. We talked about modernising parliament.

I’ve now been an MP for seven weeks. However, Westminster only issued passes for my staff this week. Some of them. And none have parliamentary e-mail addresses.

That matters because we have a mountain of case work. And with no permanent pass of his own, I’ve to escort my researcher Niall around.

If he strays too far, a Commons doorman will very politely return him to my close supervision.

I don’t think he’s been treated quite like this since primary school.

The Tory benches are very animated. And they’re packed. In fact, there are too many Tories for everyone to find a seat, and so some have to sit on the steps or cluster round the speaker’s chair.

Many of the new MPs from the north of England clearly didn’t expect to win and seem in a permanent state of astonishment. Almost all of them appear to be ferociously pro-Brexit.

Brexiteers have moved from being fringe fantasists like Bill Cash – wide eyed and Brussels obsessed – to being mainstream on the Tory benches.

Many don’t seem to care much whether Brexit leads to a border poll in Northern Ireland and Irish reunification, or whether Scotland becomes independent.

The English nationalists have triumphed over the Unionists and any price is a price worth paying for Brexit.

Scotland is being dragged out of the European Union against our will and I find it immensely sad.

I belong to a generation who’ve enjoyed all the benefits of EU membership – the right to live, love and work across the greatest free trade area the world has ever known.

And while we pool sovereignty in the EU, each country retains its independence.

I’m sometimes asked by Brexiteer MPs at Westminster why I want to leave the UK but stay in the EU.

I explain that Denmark – a country similar in so many ways to Scotland – has, as an independent member of the EU, the right to its own foreign policy, defence policy, and macro-economic policy.

It has a seat at the United Nations.

Scotland, as a member of the UK, has none of those rights. And although we were promised during our independence referendum that the UK, going forward, would be a “union of equals”, Boris Johnson bellows “No!” across the chamber whenever reasonable requests are made.

No Dane would put up with it. No Scot should.