The Brex Factor: How Cap’n Toby ​put the ‘prat’ into ‘pirate’

The West Midlands UKIP MEP believes he has uncovered a secret EU ruse to form an Olympic superteam at the 2036 Games in a cunning bid to out-medal Team GB. Etheridge told the Telegraph he had overheard plotters ‘using the word solidarity, which tends to be code for ever closer union. It speaks to their plan to create a united states of Europe. I’m almost certain there was some jealousy at Britain’s success in 2012 and 2016, and they want a piece of our success’.

Etheridge, who once wrote a book praising golliwogs, called the idea ‘crazy’ – a description which some might say could well be applied to Bill Etheridge…

NORMAN TEBBIT

The Chingford Skinhead called for Theresa May to withdraw the Tory whip from his old cabinet sparring partner Lord Heseltine after Hezza suggested pro-EU Conservatives should consider voting Labour to stop Brexit.

Tebbit called this a ‘betrayal’, and it would be interested to hear whether he thinks the same about another Lord who, in 2013, said that ‘Conservative voters are so fed up with the Cameron coalition that they will turn to UKIP as the party which comes closest to a traditional Conservative agenda, and a reasoned position on the European issue. One can hardly blame them for that’.

The Lord in question was, of course, Lord Norman Tebbit.

MICHAEL GOVE

As education secretary, Gove called for poor spelling to be marked down in exams. So how delightful that a jobs advert for his new department contained two howlers in only 27 words. Applicants were told that Gove was ‘looking to recruit high caliber (sic) people…a unique opportunity to work with others accross (sic) DEFRA’.

It’s not the first time Gove has been hoist with this particular petard, Asked to spell 18 words by the Times in 2008, he got five of them wrong, including ’embarrassed’ and ‘definitely’. Well, he’s definitely embarrassed now…

FARAGE’S FANS

And talking of dodgy spelling, much of it followed on the @KnightFarageNOW Twitter account when it became clear that the Nicotine-Stained Man-Frog would not receive a New Year’s honour. Tony Moore demanded ‘night him now’, while Jennifer Maltby wrote, ‘Sir Nigel Farage for a night hood’. But David McLachlan had the best tribute of all: ‘Get him knitted now.’

BOB NEILL’S NEMESIS

The Tory Brexit rebel received a Christmas card on the front of which the slogan read: ‘The peace and joy of God be upon you.’ Inside was handwritten another seasonal message: ‘Judas, leave the country and never come back.’

AZAK

And while we’re on the subject of Christmas, this Twitter user’s post at 7.15pm on December 25 summed up the very special magic Brexit brought to millions of British homes during the festive season:

‘Had enough of my family. Uncle brought up Brexit. Everyone started slating Brexit.

‘Making fun of blue passports. Dad called me a retard for voting Brexit. Squared up to him. Offered him out. Gave him a little shove. Stormed out the house. Won’t be going back.’

A Brexmas story to warm the heart! God bless us, every one!

NADINE DORRIES

Full of the Christmas spirit, the Brexiteer MP for Mid-Bedfordshire tweeted on December 27 that ‘left wing snowflakes’ were ‘dumbing down panto’.

Thankfully, some other great British traditions have resisted dumbing down – like television, on which Nadine appeared eating ostrich anus and 
lambs’ testicles during I’m A Celebrity in 2012.

Or literature, to which she has contributed seminal works like The Angels of Lovely Lane, The Mothers of Lovely Lane and The Children of Lovely Lane, not to mention The Four Streets, hailed by the Telegraph in 
2014 as ‘the worst novel I’ve read in 10 years’.

BRANDON LEWIS

Announcing the return of what he called ‘one of the most iconic things about being British’, the immigration minister told Radio 4’s Today programme that he knew many Remainers who ‘still speak fondly of the blue passport’.

Alas, Lewis wasn’t pressed on 
names and addresses but it seems 
fairly certain that he would have assured listeners that ‘they went to another school; you wouldn’t know 
them’.

SAM NAZ

The failed UKIP parliamentary candidate, who lost her deposit in Zac Goldsmith’s Richmond Park seat in 2015, has been jailed for three months for racially abusing a Tesco trolley collector.

A court heard the 34-year-old mum of two called Mohammed Watfa a ‘f**king foreigner’ and a ‘f**king immigrant’ during a lengthy tirade.

Naz, who initially told arresting officers the allegations were part of ‘a Muslim IS conspiracy’, is currently unable to serve her sentence.

Her solicitor explained that, presumably like many other UKIP candidates before her, she is currently away in Pakistan.

TOBY YOUNG

Despite once calling working-class undergraduates ‘universally unattractive’ and ‘vaguely deformed’, tiresome controversialist and crap Harry Hill lookalike Young has been rewarded for his Brexiteer cheerleading TV appearances by being appointed to a new university watchdog.

Young’s greatest contribution to European Union bashing came in 2011, when he promoted a protest against EU bailouts.

A few days before the event he urged anyone ‘who cares about Britain’s future to attend the Rally Against Debt’.

Alas, though the event attracted star names like Nigel Farage, his then-mistress Annabelle Fuller and portly blogger Paul Staines, only around 350 punters turned up.

Toby Young was not among them, having accepted free tickets to an exhibition about pirates at London’s Docklands museum instead.