SURELY it is time to ask: where are the leaders of the Brexit bandwagon, and what are they doing now to salvage the promises they made?

David Cameron disappeared like the proverbial snow off a dyke as soon as he realised that he had made the biggest mistake of his life in holding a referendum to assuage Tory backwoodsmen, and failing to get the result he assumed was for the taking. He has hardly been seen since. So much for his commitment to the Nation.

George Osborne, the great protagonist of austerity and carer-in-chief of our economy has retired to journalism in the City, and has been lost without trace. So much for his commitment to the Nation.

And what of Boris Johnson: lead architect of the belligerent, no facts here, exit campaign; principal pain-in-the backside and self-publicist (but highly intelligent, we hear, and therefore darling of all right-thinking patriots)? It appears he has thrown in the towel, and decided his pretended interest in a Brexit future probably wasn’t worth his getting out of bed of a morning any longer, and has slouched off to consider whether he might yet hatch a wheeze to finally kill off Theresa May. So much for his commitment to the nation.

What too of David Davis, Brexit stalwart – possibly the only one who believed his own rhetoric – and met more than his match in Michel Barnier? He finally caved in and decided that Brexit was not worth fighting for, after all.

When the going got tough, the “tough” did not get going – they got out.

And that leaves Liam Fox, who has still to show us anything approaching a deal of any kind with any other country, that has any realistic prospect of surviving more than 24 hours after March 29, 2019. He has at least hung in there for the time being – perhaps in the Micawberish hope of something turning up? Is he just too shy to show us the wonderful hand he has played with our would-be post Brexit world partners - a little reticent to brag of how his mighty persuasive negotiating powers have already secured lucrative future trade deals that will energise and transform the economy?

And what of the beleaguered 17.4 million who, without a shred of supportive evidence, blindly followed these stalwarts who promised so much, and delivered so little? They were sold a pipe-dream that proved to have no foundation in reality – not because Brexit could not have been made to work, but because those responsible for creating the project failed utterly to understand and convey its complexity and therefore failed to produce any semblance of a strategy, even less a plan, for its success, and now they have abandoned ship.

Theresa May at least deserves some credit for putting up with these charlatans for so long and attempting to craft, out of the mess created by her party, the White Paper that she hopes might yet save the day, but which in reality has become a gordian knot that will defy any attempt to offer a practicable or acceptable solution to the chaotic shambles that is Brexit.

Gerry Seenan,

Eglinton Terrace, Skelmorlie.

AS the latest omnishambles of Brexit proposals are presented as the "third way" to the EU, Theresa May, her cabinet and her party are seen as being in complete disarray, culminating in two cabinet resignations and a tsunami of hostility from her own party ("May plea for Tory unity as Johnson piles on pressure", The Herald, Juloy 16).

It’s not that she cannot please everybody which is the usual outcome of negotiated settlements but that she has achieved almost nothing and managed to upset everyone and taken two long and tedious years to accomplish that.

Perhaps the penny has now dropped and Justine Greening has had the courage to confront the obvious. Mrs May, her Cabinet, or the Government just aren’t capable of securing any kind of acceptable deal for the UK. The whole process was totally politicised from the beginning in the ensuing war among the Tories, in particular, but all those involved have lost sight of what was to be the bigger picture, to leave the EU with no disadvantage to the UK.

That outcome is now not possible; what is left for us is simply a determination of what is the least worst of the outcomes we will face. None of them is good; our standard of living, our future trading prospects with the world and our standing in it will be hugely diminished. That is what a Leave vote really meant, but we didn’t appreciate that then – did we?

It would be naive to assume that Michel Barnier and the EU are enjoying all this – they aren’t, they, at least, know there are no winners. But they could help UK out of the hole it has dug for itself. Holding out a hand of friendship to us, they could be seen to respect the reasons why we embarked on Brexit in the first place and offer us a way back in. All membership rights and responsibilities to be resumed straight away and as a matter of urgency a full debate on the future sustainability of "free movement" with a pledge to listen seriously to all including the new "populist" movement inside the EU and to legislate to reflect the outcome. Free movement, (immigration) after all was always the not so hidden motive of the Leave movement.

There will be those who will see this as a capitulation, a humiliation, but mostly those who have been stoking the fire of this Brexit war, since the start. In my view most normal people are now weary of it all, they are tired of the incompetence, the lies, the broken promises, the half truths, the plots and the posturing. To have gone through so much to achieve so little must be a sickener for both the Remainers and the Leavers. A vote, even in Parliament, to choose between the current dog's breakfast and the Hard Brexit is no vote at all.

It goes without saying that any EU free movement reforms cannot simply be kicked into the long grass as our leaders here are so used to doing. The discussions must be full, frank, and transparent, and conducted with good will on all sides, if there is any left.

Ian McLaren,

27 Buchanan Drive, Lenzie.

PRESIDENT Trump's warning that, on present policies, there can be no post-Brexit trade deal with the United States is the final proof of the folly of Brexit itself. A favourable US trade deal, if it could be delivered, would have been about the only saving grace of the predicted economic chaos that a hard Brexit would inevitably bring. It's the final proof of the lack of thought, foresight and planning from the pro-Brexiters and the dangers of relying any of their unsupported predictions.

Before the independence referendum in 2014 many of us raised the issue of oil price volatility and the effect that a severe fall in the oil price would have on the Scottish economy. The SNP rejected these warnings, predicted long-term oil price stability and was proved disastrously wrong almost immediately. If the collapse had come before September 18, 2014, the forewarned Scottish electorate would have delivered an even more emphatic “No” result.

This time we have been lucky, the warnings have come true before the event. We should heed Mr Trump's warning. The very least we can do is insist on another referendum on the terms of any agreement before we take the final fatal step of separation from our European family on the basis of the wonky logic of the Brexit obsessives.

Alex Gallagher,

Labour Councillor North Coast and Cumbraes, North Ayrshire Council,

12 Phillips Avenue, Largs.