Swatch release 'Brexit watch' where you set the UK's leaving date

Swiss watchmakers Swatch have released a Brexit-themed timepiece where you get to choose the date we leave the EU.

The watch is released as part of its Swatch X You range, where the consumer can move a background design around, featuring various dates, until the watch features your chosen date of leaving the EU.

‘Never’ is not among the options, although you can just about squeeze ‘stay’ on the watch if you also are happy with February 4 being on there too.

The social media response has been muted, with some on Twitter branding the move “tone deaf”.

One Facebook commenter said, without irony: “I want a completely transparent one so we can see the workings.”

“Must be a wind-up,” quipped one Facebook commenter.

“I hate the world,” said a Twitter user.

A spokesperson for Swatch denied it was a ‘Brexit’ watch, but a “canvas where everybody can choose her or his date, or no date”, to leave the EU.

The watch has been made in the company’s tradition of “positive provocation”, they said.

“Of course, you need people with a sense of humor to understand our messages,” said the spokesperson, going so far as to say it compared to Monty Python “that we all love so much”.

They added, soothingly: “Allow us to say that there is no better country in the world than Great Britain when it comes to sense of humour, independent of [the EU] or out of [the EU].”