SO-CALLED "Project Fear", it turns out, was no project fear.

The forecasts of lower investment (now down 26 per cent) lower growth (three per cent below forecasts) and a reduction in sterling's value (now 18 per cent down on pre-referendum) were all correct or erred on the over-optimistic.

Investment in the car industry (employing 850,000 in the supply chain) has plummeted from £4.5 billion in 2014 to £200 million this year.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said recently that even a "relatively benign" no-deal Brexit would push UK debt to its highest since the 1960s. The think tank said borrowing was likely to rise to £100 billion and total debt would soar to 90 per cent of national income. Nothing like this has happened in a major industrial sector since the Great Depression of 1931.

Just as worrying, hate crime in the UK has doubled since the referendum. Visitors to the UK avoiding speaking to their own children in their mother tongue on a bus ride. In an NHS short of 100,000 staff, the number of EU-trained nurses has dropped by 97 per cent.

The Good Friday truce at the Irish border before which 3,500 people died in a civil war on UK territory is under threat.

Two Nobel laureates and other top scientists have recently accused our unelected Prime Minister of destroying Britain’s global reputation by behaving “like a clown” and pursuing a no-deal Brexit that would leave UK science “dead” for years. Pharmaceutical and fresh food companies are warning of shortages.

Yesterday a Downing Street source threatened to withdraw cooperation on defence and security from EU countries that support any UK-requested Brexit extension. Threatening the UK’s 27 nearest neighbours who provide 50 per cent of our trade and who we have worked in partnership with for more than 40 years is hardly promising for the future of so-called "Global Britain".

In 2016, Leave campaigners including our current PM promised Brexit would lead to "sunlit uplands" and a stronger economy. However, prospects for the UK are now looking more like a heavy thunderstorm with forked lightening on a grey winter's day on Shap Fell. Time to stop, reflect and rethink?

John Wright

Kendal