Ross Clark

Frustrated Remainers wanted a second referendum – or what they ludicrously call a ‘people’s vote’, on the basis, presumably, they think the last referendum was decided by cloven-hoofed beasts and potted plants. Well, on Thursday, they are going to get one – by proxy. There is no point in the European Parliament elections, choosing candidates who may never even take their seats. Everyone knows this – even the Lib Dems aren't really bothering to plug their European manifesto, but trying to reel in the votes of frustrated Remainers who would like the Brexit vote overthrown. Instead, the election is being interpreted for one purpose alone: as a second referendum. And it is not looking good for the forces of Remain.

The election of Donald Trump has, of course, unleashed the latent racist which lurks within millions of Americans. We know this because enlightened opinion keeps telling us so. The New Yorker, for example, ran a piece in November 2016 declaring ‘Hate on rise since Trump’s election’, and quoting a list of incidents collected by the Southern Poverty Law Center – including the experience of a girl in Colorado who was allegedly told by a white man: ‘Now that Trump is president I am going to shoot you and all the blacks I can find’. TIME magazine, too, ran a story in the same month announcing ‘Racist incidents are up since Donald Trump’s election’.

Of course, we shouldn’t read too much into a set of good economic figures when they are so obviously down to stockpiling ahead of Brexit. If GDP rose by 0.5 per cent in the first three months of 2019 it was only thanks to all that condensed milk we have all stacked in the understairs cupboard – that and the riot helmets we all went out and bought in case of a hard Brexit and the marauding masses trying to break into houses in order to pilfer our said emergency store.   Yet you might think that hardened Remainers could just admit to a tiny of nugget of good news in that the economy has continued to defy the recession they so confidently predicted would result from a vote for Brexit. But not a bit of it.

Of all the red warning signs for the Conservatives, the choice of the Brexit party’s candidate for the forthcoming Peterborough by-election is blinding as they come. Not only was Mike Greene a lifelong Conservative until a few weeks ago; he is a self-made man brought up in council house who has gone on to set up businesses and serve in several charitable roles such as trustee of Peterborough cathedral. If the Conservatives cannot attract and retain such a person as a member, then what is the point of them at all? They are either the party of self-reliance, of hard work, entrepreneurship and public service – or they might as well pack up and go home.

In sacking Gavin Williamson for an offence he strenuously denies Theresa May has created for herself a potential embarrassment. What if a criminal inquiry were to find the former defence secretary not guilty of any breach of the Official Secrets Act? Yet as no-one seems to have noticed, the mini-reshuffle she carried out in the wake of the sacking has avoided another fast-looming embarrassment. In promoting Rory Stewart to the Cabinet as International Development Secretary  she has averted the loss of a popular and up and coming minister. Last August, when prisons minister, Stewart made a rash promise. He said he would resign if he had not succeeded in reducing violence and drug-taking in 10 target jails within a year.

Why is Extinction Rebellion being given such an easy ride? It isn’t hard to imagine the outrage which would rightly follow if, say, Brexiteers were to smash windows, block roads and bridges in the cause of trying to force the government into a no-deal Brexit. We would never hear the last of the Guardian condemning them for ‘fascist’ methods and attempting to bypass democracy. Yet Extinction Rebellion has been allowed to get away with all this for the past three days with hardly a murmur of protest from government ministers, MPs, commentators or anyone else. The whole things seems to have been treated a great big joke.

So, finally, we have a spirit of compromise. Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are going to sit down together and hammer out a deal on which both their respective parties can agree. Well, maybe not. There has been plenty of analysis over the past few hours predicting how it could all unwind – with further ministerial resignations and so on. But there is something more fundamentally wrong with what Theresa May has proposed. While searching for compromise might be a reasonable way to proceed on most political issues it simply doesn’t work in the case of Brexit.

As MP for the constituency which covers Newmarket, health secretary Matt Hancock will have met a few bookmakers in his time. He has even won a horse race himself, of amateur jockeys in a charity event. He will know the Conservative leadership is the sort of open race with appetising prices – not least the 10-1 which William Hill is today offering on him. I have never met Mr Hancock, and can’t say I even particularly like him, but I am sorely tempted to have a flutter. Why? Because Conservative leadership contests, for all their drama, are pretty easy to read. The winner is almost invariably the credible candidate who, at the time of the election, has succeeded in offending the fewest number of Conservatives.

Until this morning Jacob Rees-Mogg had had a remarkable Brexit. From being an obscure backbencher he had risen, without any formal position, to being just about the most powerful figure in the Conservative party after the Prime Minister. He controlled a party within a party, influencing the votes of seventy or so MPs. He became the most lucid of all MPs on Brexit, speaking with a logic and clarity which disarmed his opponents. He introduced a term to the debate – vassalage – which identified perfectly the weakness of Theresa May’s deal, and emphasised how the EU had successfully driven the Prime Minister into a corner. But this morning, all that has gone.

Without the issue of the Irish backstop, it is reasonably safe to assume the UK would be leaving the EU on Friday with a withdrawal agreement. The government would not be falling apart and businesses and investors would know where they were. But of course, as we have been told constantly by the EU, the backstop is essential. It is absolutely the only way of ensuring, post-Brexit, that the Irish border remains open. What, then, if the whole thing was a hoax – if Britain and Ireland are capable of agreeing between themselves on a customs arrangement which eliminate the need for customs formalities? That is exactly what it appears may be about to happen, if we are to believe Irish PM Leo Varadkar.