North Yorkshire potter Lee Cartledge has designed a commemorative Brexit mug that cannot be used and therefore "sums up the whole Brexit negotiations".

Cartledge, a potter at Bentham Pottery, designed the mug, which has the word Brexit cutting completely through its side, as a humorous response to Brexit.

"I'm not a political person really, but it is a political statement I guess," said Cartledge to Dezeen. "It was more the humour than the political statement. It appealed to my sense of humour."

Cartledge shared a picture of Brexit mug on the Facebook page for Bentham Pottery on Tuesday – the day that the British prime minister and EU officials agreed on a draft Brexit agreement in Brussels.

The mug is trending now on Twitter, as prime minster Theresa May's Brexit plans are faltering with two cabinet ministers quitting rather than back her draft proposal, which she must now present to parliament.

Mug made as joke

The picture of the humorous mug posted on Facebook is titled "Limited edition Brexit mug available from 29th March 2019" – the day that the UK is scheduled to leave the EU next year.

"It was done as a joke, I had no idea it would attract this sort of attention," said Cartledge.

Related story Richard Littler creates satirical poster for UK's proposed "Festival of Brexit Britain"

"My initial idea was actually to stamp Brexit on it and then drill a load of holes into it, but going into the pottery that morning I thought that a graffiti-style font with holes would look much better."

He explained that cutting the letters into the mug was a "finickity procedure" that took about 20 minutes. Cartledge carved them in the time that it took for his mother to make them both a cup of tea.

Mug "sums up the whole Brexit negotiations"

Although the mug can't be used, Cartledge thinks that the idea has chimed with the British public because of its connection to a cup of tea. "A cup of tea is a very British thing isn't it, and to express Brexit in terms of a cup of tea, it fitted the national psyche in some way," said Cartledge.

"I think it sums up the whole Brexit negotiations, whether you're a Remainer or a Brexiteer," said Cartledge. "It's quite an inoffensive Brexit statement."

He plans to make a limited edition of 60 mugs to sell commercially. "I don't particularly want to spend the next few months making a load of Brexit mugs. I can just about stomach 60," he said.

Other creatives responding to Brexit include Richard Littler, who designed a spoof poster for the proposed Festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which will take place in 2022 after the UK has left the EU, and creative agency Superimpose Studio who made a poster featuring a "Brexit burger".