IT appears that Harry Mead has become a "Bemoaner" now that the Brexit chickens have come home to roost and the fantasy of Brexit has been exposed for what it always was in today's inter-connected world: an impossible work of fiction (Echo, Nov 28).

Our inept government is presenting us with two options: leave the EU with our tail between our legs to become a rule-taking colony or leave the EU with our tail between our legs to become an impoverished little England.

The first option will apparently cost us £100bn and the second option will cost us £200bn, money which could have funded our NHS, schools and public services.

The prospect of Spain vetoing future trade deals unless we give them Gibraltar, and of France vetoing future deals unless we give them fishing rights, and of the US relishing the privatisation of the NHS in return for a deal, now looms large. Not to mention the break-up of the once United Kingdom.

As Joni Mitchell sang: "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."

However, we should not blame our European neighbours for this self-inflicted humiliation. We should really but place the responsibility where it rightly belongs on Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees Mogg and the self-serving Conservative politicians who have misled us.

Stephen Warren, Durham