If there were a test for Englishness, I would pass with flying colours. I feel compelled to say that because you probably think I’m from Eastern Europe and these days, it’s not easy being non-English in England.

I was born in England to two English parents and can trace my English ancestry back as many generations as you choose on both sides of my family. I was brought up in England and didn’t even leave the country until I went on a school exchange, aged 14. Throughout my life I have had never had a problem with being thought of as English – not until I woke up on June 24 and found that the Little Englanders had taken over.

There is a nasty xenophobic, nationalistic, intolerant side to the English character. You see it in football hooligans, among others. It’s the opposite of how the English like to see themselves – open-minded, tolerant, with a strong sense of justice. But it’s the side that has come to the fore since the Brexit vote.

If you had known me before I was married, you wouldn’t have thought for a minute that I was anything other than English. That’s because Rychlikova is my married name. My maiden name was pure Anglo-Saxon. Then I married a Czech and acquired a Czech surname. It doesn’t change who I am, just what I am called.

I never felt self-conscious about my name when in Britain until June 24. Yes, I had to get used to it being pronounced in all sorts of different ways - you should have heard Berwick Kaler having fun trying to say it during a panto some years ago - but it never occurred to me that it was a disadvantage, not in fair-minded tolerant England.

That changed on June 24. Now, even in York, which voted Remain, I am not sure what the response will be when I give my name to a stranger and whether I will be told to “pack my bags and go home”. Go where – to my birthplace and ancestral home of England?

There is no such thing as an English citizen. My passport says I’m a British citizen, and I’m all right with that, because British includes the level-headed Scots, who, when faced with going into isolation as an independent nation, took a long hard look, and stepped back. I cheered them for that – and if they decide to change their decision and break their ties with Little England, I would cheer them again.

My passport also says I’m a citizen of the European Union, and I’m fine about that. These days, everything we do has an international element. Most of what we buy is either from a multi-national company or made abroad. York survives on tourism and many of the visitors you see in our streets are foreign. Two-thirds of our food has to be imported because we can’t grow enough on these islands.

We can’t exist without the rest of the world – and that means working in co-operation with other countries, especially our next-door neighbours.

Blaming someone for causing your problem does nothing except make you feel better. Kicking everyone with the remotest bit of non-English in them out of the country wouldn’t solve the North South divide, wouldn’t fill the gaping and widening gap between rich and poor, wouldn’t give the NHS the funds and staff it needs, or solve any of the other problems put forward as an argument to leave the EU. All it would do is open the way for some other minority to be blamed – the disabled, redheads? The only way to solve your problem is to actually tackle the problem.

So until England stops being Little England, call me European, call me British, say I come from York. But don’t, whatever you do, call me English.