BACK in 2016 one commentator suggested that the people who were competent to deliver Brexit didn’t want it and the people who wanted it weren’t competent to deliver it.

Oh how right they were.

The four options which are available all look likely to land us further in the mire:

1) Cancel article 50 and seek EU reform from within

2) Accept a deal that nobody seems to want

3) Go back to the people (referendum or people’s assembly) or

4) The no deal scenario. The last seems particularly problematic.

It is rather like curing a painful in-growing toe nail by amputation at the hip using surgeons that we cannot trust to cut off the correct leg.

But clearly, there are those who are enthusiastic for this remedy and to them I would make a plea.

If we do leave without a deal and the regions that voted heavily for Brexit find themselves catapulted into lay-offs, shortages and more austerity, please do not blame this on Remainers, Scots, Irish, foreigners who happen to work here, or indeed the EU.

This will only make a bad situation worse.

The economic and political fall-out from a no deal Brexit would be with us for many years to come (this is not project-fear but project post-Brexit practical reality).

I sincerely hope I am wrong but so far there is little to inspire confidence that the no-dealers have a clue what they are about to let us all in for.

Bob Simpson, Durham