BACK in 2016 I wrote a letter which, for me, summed up the folly of Brexit.

The story was a Sri Lankan folk tale: A family find that their goat has got its head stuck in a water pot. Try as they might they can’t get it off the goat’s head. “Let us send for Maha Danamutta – the great all-knowing grandfather” suggests one of the family, “he will be able to solve the problem”.

Maha Danamutta comes dressed in all his finery and riding on an elephant.

As he approaches the village, the elephant lurches and flattens the perimeter wall of the village before knocking down two houses and scattering all the villagers in the process.

The elephant then crashes into the family’s house and steps on the goat, killing it.

As the goat falls to the ground the pot on its head smashes. “Thank you Maha Danamutta” say the family “you have solved our problem”. It would seem the elephant marches on.

Leaving the EU will not solve the very real economic and social problems that people have in the regions of the UK, and which they were led to believe would be solved by voting to leave.

As we crash towards a no-deal Brexit it looks like we are about to smash that very precious pot.

Bob Simpson, Durham