Like many of Sunderland’s older inhabitants, William Hughes worked for most of his life down the coal pits.
But he was in the minority when the city on England’s north-east coast voted to leave the EU in 2016 and describes himself as “frightened” by the turmoil that Brexit has unleashed.
For Mr Hughes, whose life was upended when the coal mines were closed in the 1990s and who is anxious that jobs will go again, this week’s decision to put Britain’s departure on ice is a relief.
“They said how much money we would save [by leaving the EU] but they didn’t say how much we would lose,” he said.
The former miner may still be outnumbered by Leave supporters in the city, whose 62 per cent vote for Brexit early on the night of the referendum heralded Britain’s decision to leave the EU.
But, although the UK’s departure is now not scheduled until October 31, people on the streets of Sunderland have not responded to the delay with an outpouring of fury.
Instead, sentiment in the bellwether city is a mixture of weary frustration and cynicism. While there is little enthusiasm for the compromise exit deal that prime minister Theresa May has struck with Brussels, some Sunderland inhabitants seemed to prefer any form of Brexit to the current limbo.
“We are sick of it,” said Christine, from nearby Gateshead, a retiree shopping in Sunderland’s central precinct. “This means that we are going to have to listen to it all over again.”
In fact, the debate is only likely to intensify. Because of the delay, Britain is set to hold elections to the European Parliament next month — almost three years after its vote to leave. Pro- and anti-Brexit parties are already mobilising.
“People voted to come out and we should be out by now,” said Christine’s friend Karen, who compared the prime minister’s management of Brexit to selecting a footballer from Sunderland to play for the city’s bitter nearby rivals, Newcastle. During the referendum campaign, Mrs May was a lukewarm supporter of Remain.
“Theresa May needs a bomb up her backside,” said Karen, comparing the prime minister with one of her most celebrated Conservative predecessors. “At least Margaret Thatcher stuck by what she said.”
Sunderland is one of many traditional Labour strongholds where working class disaffection helped swing the referendum towards Brexit.
The area has been abandoned by successive governments “like a rotten tangerine”, said Adam Perkin, who repainted lines on roads travelled by the Olympic torch when Britain hosted the games in 2012. He now works in security in Sunderland’s shopping precinct.
He strongly backs EU membership — but is aghast at MPs’ three rejections of Mrs May’s exit deal — which forced the prime minister to ask the bloc for the Brexit delay.
“The last person who went to parliament with the right intentions was Guy Fawkes,” Mr Perkin joked, referring to the Catholic conspirator who tried to blow up Westminster in 1605.
Sunderland hosts the largest Nissan factory in Europe — one reason why its vote to leave caused so much attention.
A good number of workers at the facility, which employs 6,000 people from across the north-east, celebrated the referendum victory in 2016. But several leaving the plant on Thursday said there was real anxiety now about potential job losses. Nissan has already announced it will not produce a promised new sport utility vehicle at Sunderland, partly because of concerns about future ties with the EU.
“Brexit needs to be sorted out properly. It is causing a lot of division and unrest,” said one Nissan employee smoking outside the plant, who declined to give his name. “The problem is that nobody seems to know what sorting it out means.”
Some recent polls have indicated that, because of the travails of Mrs May’s deal, opinion is hardening across the UK on both sides of the Brexit debate — between those who want to stay in the EU and proponents of leaving without an agreement.
In such a climate, Bridget Phillipson, the Labour MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, has been criticised by some constituents for promoting a second referendum to break the deadlock.
Ms Phillipson expressed great relief at the decision to delay Brexit — and to avoid a no-deal exit this weekend — an outcome she says would have had a “devastating and irreparable impact” on the north-east’s economy.
“I am so glad we have avoided that but we still haven’t resolved anything,” she added. “For all the frustration that Brexit has not happened yet, there is also frustration that there is no time to talk about tackling poverty, about creating jobs,” she said.
Labour, which has called for a relatively soft Brexit and suggested a second referendum, is leading in the initial polls for the European Parliament elections. But Ms Phillipson conceded that voters might balk at the prospect of the contest.
She argued it was an opportunity for Labour to make a “patriotic” case for maintaining close ties to its neighbours. That will be a tough sell to some of her constituents.
Paul Ellis, an unemployed construction worker who spent years on sites in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic, said the delay to Brexit was like going back to square one three years later.
“We have got an extension till Halloween. It’s a joke — no English person likes all this waiting around,” he said, before pointing to two seagulls perched stationary on a nearby parked car:
“That’s Brexit,” he said. “Going nowhere.”
