By Tim Murgatroyd

Waiting for a birthday when you’re a child seems to stretch time. When you’re an adult, time speeds up a little with each year that passes. For millions of Brexiteers, March 29, 2017, is the birthday they have long awaited and desired.

Today Article 50 is triggered and the UK’s two-year negotiations on the terms of Brexit formally commence. A new Britain is in the process of being born. Is it just me who views this birthday with a heavy heart?

I’m sure many will groan at that question. Not another Remoaner who can’t accept the referendum result? Get over it. You lost, we won. Move on.

I won’t pretend I didn’t have tears in my eyes when I heard the news that Britain was leaving the EU on the morning of June 24 last year. That would be hypocrisy.

But I, and the majority of the 48 per cent who voted to Remain, have moved on. Yes, we lost. We accept the result. But at least allow us a chance to mourn our losses on today of all days.

And great losses they seem to many of us in York, a city that voted overwhelmingly to Remain.

Take the three million EU citizens who have been generous enough to come here and share their expertise and labour with the British people. It is indisputable to say the NHS would collapse without nurses and doctors from EU countries. Let’s face it, due to a lack of investment in training home-grown doctors and nurses, coupled with the Government’s bizarre decision to scrap student nurses’ bursaries, we face a growing recruitment crisis.

According to the Royal College of Nursing, only 96 nurses joined the NHS from other EU nations in December 2016 compared to 1,304 in July 2016, the month after the referendum. NHS trusts are reporting a flight of EU health professionals because they simply do not feel wanted here.

Yes, I mourn their departure today. I fear this is just the beginning of a great loss of human talent in all sectors of our economy. Especially in York, with its world-class university heavily reliant on EU grants for key areas of research.

York Press:

Stormy times ahead: Brexit will have consequences, warns Tim Murgatroyd

I also mourn the confusion and fear caused by our Government’s decision to use the rights of longstanding EU residents as leverage in the upcoming negotiations.

Honest, law-abiding people who have lived here most of their lives. Who have raised families here and worked hard and paid their taxes. Real human beings, not abstract negotiating chips.

The Government needs to show British decency and compassion to end the uncertainty suffered by our friends, family members and neighbours who happen to have been born elsewhere. And fast.

And I bet many of the 1.5 million British-born immigrants living in EU countries fear a similar loss of rights and security today. We need to remember, doors can swing both ways.

I’m also grieving for the loss of a dream. A dream of peace based upon co-operation. The EU, for all its many bureaucratic and undemocratic faults, did bind European nations together. Indeed, it was created as a response to the horrors of the Second World War.

Because of it, for the first time in human history, the possibility of a European land war has been unthinkable.

I’m sure many people will dismiss that worry as far-fetched. But anyone who remembers how neighbour turned upon neighbour in the former Yugoslavia will know the unthinkable can become all too real, all too quickly.

I won’t dwell on the economic uncertainty a hard Brexit will inevitably cause. Or the loss of EU grants to impoverished areas of the UK like Cornwall, the North East and parts of Wales. Or the widely held fear our Government will abandon essential EU environmental and food regulations. Not to mention abandoning workers’ rights in favour of a low regulation, corporate tax haven Britain with under-funded public services.

One thing is clear, we must hold those negotiating Brexit on our behalf to rigorous scrutiny and account. If we don’t, we’ll all be in mourning when our two-year negotiations are up.