In the last 24 hours I’ve encountered a gentleman called Ian Dickinson on Twitter. He tweets with the username @iandicko73. He did not follow me, and I do not follow him. This was our first interaction:

"EU citizen with a UK passport"
Anyone RTing this fool will be blocked. https://t.co/IziXcf7LYz

— Ian Dickinson 🇬🇧 (@iandicko73) October 28, 2017

It relates to this Twitter thead of mine that ended up becoming quite popular this weekend. The thread – by my standards anyway – is pretty mild. It basically recounts all of the week’s news about Brexit, and adds a few emojis.

But anyway it clearly angered Ian so much as as to mean he threatened to block people for retweeting it. That led this this:

No mate, your sort need their "UK passport" confiscating. Now get lost.

— Ian Dickinson 🇬🇧 (@iandicko73) October 28, 2017

He followed up with this:

In 45 years I've never needed one.
My mother, 74, has never needed one either.
I suspect you'd be lost without yours.

— Ian Dickinson 🇬🇧 (@iandicko73) October 28, 2017

Here you can see all his tweets to me, and here all mine to him.

Linda was described as a cheeky cow, and @hollowornate summed it all up thus:

And then, after half a dozen tweets exchanged (civilised ones on my side), he blocked me. I’m not the only one.

What can we learn from this?

First, I made an error – I called Ian a fool in one of my first tweets, and that was inappropriate.

But second, and most important, is the point made by Hollow Ornate above. Why is it so important for someone who has never left the UK to vote to make it harder for other British passport holders to do the same? What is the burning anger, the latent hurt, the manic, almost visceral hate for the other that emerges here? Why, Ian, does it actually matter to you what I do with my UK passport? Because it actually does not really matter to me what you do (or do not do) because you do not have one – that is your deal, not mine.

There are some legitimate reasons why voting for Brexit might make sense in some circumstances, but considering you work in dairy farming, Ian, I would love to hear how you think your sector will do after Brexit.

This little exchange with Ian is a microcosm of British political debate just now. The same happens thousands of times a day on Twitter, and then escalates through the mainstream media to British politics, where you then have the likes of Andrea Leadsom demanding the media behaves patriotically.

Somehow or other we have to all learn how to talk to each other all over again.

(Note: screenshots of all tweets have also been taken, so do not try to cover your tracks by deleting your tweets, Ian)

[Update 29.10.2017, 1435]
Then this happened:
https://twitter.com/DivineDigit/status/924630274968899585

[Update 30.10.2017, 1245]
Oh! A compliment of sorts!

I'm now being made an example of on some famous bloke's blog.

— Ian Dickinson 🇬🇧 (@iandicko73) October 29, 2017