AS the Brexit debate enters its most crucial week, North-East business leaders will call on the region’s politicians to stop a no-deal Brexit which they say will be catastrophic to the local economy.

The campaign group North-East 4 EU (NE4EU) will meet in Gateshead on Monday to add its voice to the calls for a second referendum – or “people’s vote”.

At the meeting will be members of the Business for a People’s Vote group, which has signed about about 70 leading entrepreneurs, businesspeople and academics in the region to its campaign.

The meeting will include Ian Dormer, former chair of the Institute of Directors and managing director of Durham-based Rosh Engineering, and the Newcastle North MP Catherine McKinnell and the Sedgefield MP Phil Wilson.

NE4EU spokesperson David Hardman, of the Newcastle-based design firm Outline, said: “Business leaders are desperately concerned about the economic catastrophe that will befall the North-East if the Government and Parliament allow us to go over the cliff-edge of a no-deal Brexit.

“They are telling the politicians to act now to avert disaster. “

He said a no-deal Brexit would bring “chaos” to the exporting economy of the North-East, and that as there was no enthusiasm for Theresa May’s deal, which “offers no sovereignty and no new trade opportunities”, the meeting would call for a People’s Vote.

MPs have their “meaningful vote” on Mrs May’s deal on Tuesday, the day after the meeting at the Hilton.