I HOPE that the more discerning of Northern Echo readers will have realised by now that the Government and Opposition are both on the gradual backtracking slide away from a simple Brexit.

To begin with it was "no deal is better than a bad deal", then the debate about “hard” or “soft” Brexit followed by the comments that the British people didn’t know what they were voting for, presumably because they were too stupid.

Then it was hinted that we would need an interim period after 2019 which was suggested as two years and more recently three or four years, perhaps even longer in order to allow people to get really tired of the whole thing and give up caring.

It is clear that the powers that be didn’t expect the result that the referendum gave them and have, over the last year or so, been scrambling about looking for an escape route in order to maintain the status quo.

Every available source has been exploited in order to scare the British people into accepting a situation which would effectively see us be part of the EU in all but name.

The simple fact is that the majority of people voted to come out of the EU and to regain our own rights to govern ourselves and not be part of a United States of Europe.

A majority of one is still a majority, or are we only a democratic country when it suits?

Brian Sutherland, Sedgefield