Tomorrow Britain closes the door on one chapter in our long history and opens the door to another.
For some this will be a moment of mourning, for others a time for celebration.
A rupture as momentous as Brexit was always going to be divisive and controversial.
No divorce is easy.
The last three years have tested friendships, divided families and strained the bonds that bind us.
If the arguments were so passionate it was the because the issue was so important.
At stake is our future prosperity, security and place in the world.
Some firms and industries will prosper, others could struggle.
People’s jobs and livelihoods will be affected.
There are some who even question whether the United Kingdom will survive as pressure grows for independence in Scotland and Northern Ireland finds itself on a different path from the British Isles.
This is not the moment to revisit the debate that has raged for the last three years.
At 11pm tomorrow we will leave the European Union and embark on a new era.
What happens next is ours to shape.
We have to forge a new trade deal with the European Union.
Agreements on security, data sharing, fishing and aviation have to be revised and rewritten.
There will be years of extensive and sometimes difficult trade talks with dozens of other countries including the United States, India, Japan and Australia.
We must ensure there will be no watering down of labour laws, consumer and environmental protections and hard-won rights.
Nor must there be any agreement that allows US health firms to plunder our National Health Service.
If the first stage of Brexit was fraught with frustrations the next few years could be even more testing and complex.
There is a danger that we conduct the battles ahead with the same acrimony that has characterised the debate since we voted to leave in June 2016.
This paper recommended that we stay in the European Union but we have always recognised the democratic legitimacy of the referendum.
If the UK is to come together again, which it must, then it is time for those who lost the argument to stop fighting old battles and for those who won to reach out to the defeated.
Our national conversation has become too heated and too toxic.
The values once associated with Britain of tolerance, pragmatism and decency risk being swept away by a tide of furious finger pointing and point scoring.
We are saying goodbye to our relationship with the EU but we must not turn our back on our friends in Europe.
That hand of friendship must also be extended to those with which we disagree in our own country.
We must show that it is possible to hold opposing views without resorting to rancour and bitterness.
The journey ahead will be challenging and controversial.
As we proceed we must do so in a new spirit of reconciliation and renewal.
