The new year slips in, tailgating quietly through the closing crack of the old, and the elderly Brexit-voting racist relatives you tolerated through gritted skull over the festive season, their presence turning Christmas into a three-dimensional LBC phone-in, to be survived only by the anaesthetic of alcohol, have departed.

But blood is thicker than water. And so are your elderly Brexit-voting racist relatives. They are also thicker than eggnog, thicker than Harvey’s Bristol Cream, thicker even than Sainsbury’s Turkey Gravy mixed with the actual fatty juices of the bird and then left congealed in a Pyrex™ pint jug for five days, until finally scraped away by a hungover uncle into a squirrel-gnawed council food recycling bin. And now it is time to write these saboteurs their thank-you letters.

“Dear Auntie Gladys. Thank you very much for the Chinese air pollution masks you gave us for Christmas this year. Toxic nitrogen dioxide levels are 50% more than EU legal limits outside our kids’ schools here in London, so the masks are sure to come in handy in order to help us respire. I agree. It is lucky we will be leaving the EU in March so we can stop wearing them, as the stupid red tape from Brussels will no longer apply. As you say Auntie, ‘Up yours, Delors!’”

“Dear Auntie Caddis. Thank you very much for the four pack of baked beans and the toilet roll you gave us for Christmas this year. I will put these in the Anderson shelter in the cellar with the cheese crackers to stock-pile in the event of no-deal Brexit food shortages. I understand that you remember the war and what fun it was, especially jiving with the GIs in exchange for nylons and so you are doubtless looking forward to the camaraderie the coming hard times will generate in dancehall toilets and picture house cloakrooms. I think you will find, however, that ‘our coloured friends’ will still be here, as they are from Africa and Pakistan, not Poland. You’re right, though, the man in the corner shop is ‘lovely’ and is ‘not like the others’.”

“Dear Auntie Gladioli. Thank you for the book vouchers you gave us for Christmas this year. I will put them in the Anderson shelter in the cellar to use as hard currency in the event of a no-deal Brexit. And yes, Barbie from Love Thy Neighbour was a lovely girl. It made fun of both sides! I’ll have ’alf!! Brexit means Brexit!!!”

“Dear Auntie Gadfly. Thank you very much for the leftover high blood pressure tablets, flatus filters and spare suppositories you gave us for Christmas this year. I will put them in the Anderson shelter in the cellar with the inhalers and the rabies vaccine to stockpile in the event of no-deal Brexit medicine shortages. It was kind of the woman in the chemist’s to let you have them. And yes, you are right, she is ‘not like the others’ and is ‘quite westernised, really’. Take back control!!”

“Dear Auntie Caddisfly. Thank you very much for the autobiography of Michael Caine that you gave us for Christmas this year. It is interesting how things in the 60s were different to things in the 40s and things now are different to things in both those times, though some other things have stayed the same, or gone back to what they were like in the first place, having been different for a period of time in the middle, which was bad. As Mrs Gove said to Michael Gove on Brexit day, ‘You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!’ You’re right, though, Lady Caine seems very elegant and ‘westernised’ and is not like the other Muslims. Not a lot of people know that!”

Dear Auntie Eva. I don’t know if I agree with you that ‘Hitler had some good ideas, he just put them into practice badly’

“Dear Auntie Savage. Thank you very much for the set of illegal zombie knives you sent me for Christmas this year. They will, as you suggest, come in handy in fighting the civil war that is sure to engulf the country if ‘the will of the people is not respected’. I agree that we should all practise with them by stabbing things, perhaps our own feet? And yes, you are right, hands are probably better than feet, but some feet could pass for hands and have been quite ‘handified’. I think you’ll find we voted to leave!”

“Dear Auntie Zavvi. Thank you very much for the record tokens you sent me for Christmas this year. There is no need to worry, as HMV, despite being in administration due to the pincer movement of downloads, streaming, online sales and Amazon’s tax avoidance, have agreed to honour the tokens. That said, I am going to put them in the Anderson shelter in the cellar, alongside the book tokens Auntie Gladioli sent, to use as hard currency in the event of a no-deal Brexit. You are right, too. Nipper the HMV logo dog is not like the other dogs. He listens to an old Edison Bell cylinder phonograph like a Victorian English man and seems quite ‘humanised’.”

“Dear Auntie Eva. I don’t know if I agree with you that ‘Hitler had some good ideas, he just put them into practice badly’. And last time I quoted your Christmas morning comment in this column, readers said I had invented you as a parody of Brexit voters, so you are too unbelievable to be of any use to me.”

And I am in the grey street, drunk and banging a dustbin lid with a bread-sauce-smeared wooden spoon. You! You stole your grandchildren’s dreams. Get out! Get out and get back to where you came from!! Inside, I pen my own below-the-line online critique. “It’s writing like this that caused Brexit!” And on it goes. And on and on. Happy New Year.

Stewart Lee’s standup special, Content Provider, and all four series of his Comedy Vehicle are on the BBC iPlayer. You can view previews of a film he is working on about the Nightingales at kingrockerfilm.com