A time for cool heads and careful decisions

The pollsters proven wrong again.

And the PM resigning to boot.

Behind it all, of course, is the decision of the people of Britain – not least those living in this area – who voted to leave the EU.

It’s a momentous decision and one that will reverberate for many years to come.

But the die is cast and the decision made.

Now it’s about making sure that Britain outside the EU is a strong as possible.

And in turn, that the Portsmouth area reaps any potential rewards from the decision.

As our local MPs point out today, it’s not the time to rush into decisions about how things will be.

It needs cool heads and calm minds to make sure what will inevitably be a difficult journey is as painless as possible.

While the campaign was mired in tit-for-tat arguments, Leave is now our reality.

There remain many unknowns as to how it will affect our day-to-day lives.

And how quickly any changes to NHS funding, immigration and other thorny issues come into being remains to be seen.

But we can only echo the sentiments raised today by Penny Mordaunt and Caroline Dinenage.

It might not be the decision that nearly half of the electorate wanted, but it is the decision.

Now is the time to look forward as optimistically as possible and hope we can enjoy some of the rewards promised by people during the Leave campaign.

It might seem like we’ve stepped off a precipice into the unknown.

But let’s all take a breath, enjoy the moment if it’s how you voted, then move forward as optimistically as possible.