‘DEAL or No Deal?’ There is a third option.

Over 700,000 people marched in London. Channel 4’s poll shows 54 per cent of people want to remain in the EU. Jo Johnson resigns citing a choice between vassalage and chaos. The Government ‘agrees’ a deal and immediately half a dozen senior Conservatives resign their posts. The European Research group sharpen their knives and the DUP say they will vote the deal down. A faction within the Cabinet undermines the PM by threatening to make changes to her deal. Just a few of the highlights of the last month.

Goodness knows what else will happen between me writing these words and my letter being published in the paper.

Had anyone envisaged these developments two years ago they would have been labelled as ‘Project Fear’. Well, welcome to ‘Project Reality’. For the last two years we have watched a car crash in slow motion. Unfortunately, now it is speeding up and the two outcomes on offer are: a ‘not-quite-so-bad-a-deal-as-some-people-expected-as-long-as-we-pay-£40-billion’, and a ‘Mad Max all-hands-on-deck no-deal’ where some people will lose their jobs, their homes or their futures.

Is this really what this country, which until two years ago was one of the most highly-respected in the world, should expect?

Absolutely not. It is clear that the public mood has changed. This change will only accelerate as younger voters come on board and older voters die; and as more of the realities of Brexit replace the fantasies.

Parliament looks like a dead end with no majority for any outcome. A General Election — even if Article 50 were extended — would result in a repeat of the current farce with only the names of the characters changed.

The only realistic solution is to have a three-way ‘Peoples Vote’ on the ‘Deal’, ‘no Deal’ or ‘No Brexit’. Then we’ll know what the will of the people really is.

Philip Nield, Pardown, Oakley