For the EU referendum, which now seems a very long time ago and took place on a different world, I voted for the UK to remain.

You can therefore understand my reaction at the result when, like Charlton Heston seeing the partially buried Statue of Liberty at end of Planet of the Apes (1968), I pounded the earth in despair and screamed 'we finally really did it. You blew it up! Damn you all to hell!'

However, I took solace in the fact that Norwich, almost alone in East Anglia, had voted to remain in the EU; never before had Alan Partridge's description of Norwich as 'the little island in the bog' felt so meaningful.

The majority of London also voted to remain, and an online campaign advanced the idea of London gaining independence from whatever's left of the United Kingdom and go it alone as a nation state.

Surely what's good for the capital city is good enough for the Fine City? Perhaps we too should declare independence, and become a city state, a distant San Marino to London's Italy, as it were.

The nation state as we know is a relatively modern conception, a result of empires, the rise of geopolitics, and cartographers keen to fill in the blank bits of their atlases. Ancient Greece was composed of city states, such as Athens, Sparta, and Corinth; likewise Renaissance Italy and the likes of Florence, Venice, and Genoa; in more recent times, both Tangier and Trieste were free independent cities following the Second World War.

Even today, we have the Vatican City, Monaco, and Singapore, all city states.

The rest of Norfolk wouldn't miss us too much, and could make Great Yarmouth the new capital, a town in the top five areas of the country in terms of support for leaving the EU.

Norwich already has its own TV and radio stations, and in City Hall, a potential parliament. While attending the pro-EU rally organized so well by two UEA students, Emily Cutler and Tom Johnston, I spotted an excellent design for the national flag of Norwich: our coat of arms, surrounded by the EU emblem of 12 yellow stars on a blue background, though for our purposes, the stars would be canary yellow, and on a green background.

And talking of football, as a potential member of UEFA, an independent Norwich could host the likes of France, Germany, and Portugal in qualifying tournaments. A population of around 210,000 doesn't give us much to pick from, and that's even if Sprowston, Cringleford and so on don't mind being annexed, but if it's good enough for Russia, it's good enough for us. And we should at least be able to beat England.

Tourists would flock to an authentic 'ye olde wurlde' city state and we could produce and sell our own stamps, with not the Queen on each one, but Delia. Elizabeth Fry would feature once more on banknotes, to be joined by Edith Cavell and Sir Thomas Browne.

Beth Orton could compose and sing the Norwich national anthem, while Stephen Fry would make a wonderful minister for culture. I myself would happily write a new city constitution in exchange for a statue in my honour in Earlham Park.

What a scene it will be on our independence day, when in scenes reminiscent of Evita, Cathy Dennis sings 'Don't Cry For Me, Jean-Claude Juncker' from the balcony of City Hall, as the crowds throng below, waving their 'Norwich Pride of Anglia' flags.

All so much Ameila Opie-in-the-sky stuff, you might say. Well, at least it's a plan, which is more than any of our politicians thought to consider before leading us into one of the most needless, divisive, and plain nonsensical political campaigns in living memory.

The lead-up to the referendum was bad enough, the fallout even worse, with the likes of Cameron and Farage, men who fiddled while the Treaty of Rome burned, laughing on both sides of their faces, as they walked away from the chaos they wrought.

Norwich, the city of Lord Nelson and Robert Kett, knows a thing or two about when to lead the country and when to turn against it.

Norwich was right not to turn against the continent, for with our history, a tradition of 'doing different', and liberal outlook, we are as much a European city as we are an English one; let us hope the rest of the country sees sense and doesn't require us to be so very different in this instance.

•The views above are those of Tim Cook who writes for the Evening News 'In My View' column. This column has been brought to you in association with Cinema City. Would you like to write a column for the Evening News? Email newsdesk@archant.co.uk