DEMOCRACY must be respected. The people of Britain have voted to leave the EU and, although that makes me sad and fearful, the decision has to be accepted and we need strong leadership to move forward.

That said, we should always remember that anything can happen once the democratic process is let loose.

In 2002, I was the editor of The Northern Echo on the night the people of Hartlepool - utterly disaffected by main party politicians (and, yes, Labour were in power under Tony Blair) – voted for a man in a monkey suit to be their Mayor.

I was as gobsmacked then as I am now, contemplating a deeply uncertain future outside the EU.

But that’s what can happen.

Fourteen years ago, in Hartlepool, the newly-elected mayor, Stuart Drummond, was swiftly taken to one side by the likes of Peter Mandelson and the monkey suit and the manifesto promise of free bananas for all were unceremoniously ditched. Mayor Drummond emerged in a proper suit, took the job seriously, and Hartlepool went on to make the best of a situation that was born out of a joke.

The difference today is, of course, enormous. Britain has taken a seismic but democratic decision -and the monkey on the nation’s back is of King Kong proportions.

Anything really can happen but, for our children’s sakes, we have to come together and somehow make it work.