Brexfactor: 10 of the worst from the week in Brexit

When Labour AM Eluned Morgan marked Article 50’s triggering by telling the Welsh Assembly, ‘today is a profoundly sad day for the nation … of course, those who will pay the highest price for Article 50 will be those who can least afford it’, UKIP’s leader in Wales muttered ‘suicide is an option’. And he always seemed so nice!

Hamilton, last heralded in this column when he opened a new constituency office in Whitland, Carmarthenshire and was so delighted he sent out an email misspelling the name of the county once and the town three times, later apologised and returned to his life of fitful sleep, plagued by visions of avenging men in white shrouds and large battleaxes poised at his twitching neck.

9. Martin Daubney

(NEW ENTRY)

The former Loaded magazine editor, now a rentagob warrior against imaginary ‘feminazis’, sent a series of tweets from Parliament Square on the day Article 50 was triggered, professing surprise that it was free of opposition. ‘Literally zero protestors at Parliament Square,’ he wrote. ‘I did two circuits. Seems #Remainers finally gave up on #BrexitDay’.

A good point well made and shame on all 100,000 of us who were in Parliament Square on the Saturday for not taking a day off work and going back four days later just to help Martin out.

8. Brexiteers on the March For Europe (NEW ENTRY)

The Stone-Island bedecked gents who lurked outside the St Stephens’ Tavern by Portcullis House drinking imported lager before unfurling a St George’s Cross flag emblazoned, with no hint of irony, ‘Extremists Off Our Streets’! The lank-haired lad in a Donald Trump sweatshirt who marauded around Parliament Square attempting to heckle the speeches but being drowned out by the giant PA system! Pint-sized EDL supremo Tommy Robinson, another self-awareness free zone, who told The Canary he had ‘spoken to a lot of people who said ‘we should ignore the 52%’. Which is fascism’! Truly the opposition sent us their best and brightest last Saturday, and we are grateful!

7. Arthur Scargill (NEW ENTRY)

The former NUM leader, believed to have given Donald Trump style tips on pairing bad hair with a crap baseball cap, broke a long and pleasant silence to declare that the EU was responsible for him losing the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike and that Brexit would allow us to re-open the cotton mills.

Scargill, now 79, went on to claim that new steelworks and coal mines would now also fling open their doors, but neglected to specify the day on which a child would return to every chimney. All in all a disappointing return to public life for the reclusive figure who last made headlines in 2013, when a friend texted him with the news ‘Thatcher dead’ and he responded in capitals with the message ‘SCARGILL ALIVE’.

6. Go Skippy Insurance (NEW ENTRY)

The insurance firm marked the triggering of Article 50 with a ‘Brexit giveaway’ promising new customers a cuddly kangaroo in a Union Jack T-shirt. A bizarre and divisive stunt, you might have thought – unless you knew that Go Skippy Insurance is owned by former UKIP funder Arron Banks, who specialises in such things.

In response, we’ve thought of a three-word sentence beginning with ‘Go…’ which isn’t ‘Go Skippy Insurance’ and will happily share it with Arron and his team of kangaroos should they so wish.

5. John Lydon (NEW ENTRY)

The former Sex Pistols frontman hailed Brexit as a victory for the man in the street, telling Good Morning Britain ‘the working class have spoke and I’m one of them and I’m with them’ and informing ITV News that Nigel Farage was ‘fantastic’.

At this point it’s worth noting that Lydon’s erstwhile bandmate Sid Vicious was once asked whether the Pistols wrote for the man in the street. Replied Sid: ‘No. I’ve met the man in the street and he’s a c*nt.’

4. Paul Dacre (UP 3)

Used the journalistic acumen built up over a 46-year career to reveal that female politicians have legs. Followed up with ludicrous ‘Freedom!’ and ‘Cheers To A Great British Future!’ front pages. Still no news about him returning the £88,000 in European Union subsidies he trousered in 2014 for his country estates in the Scottish highlands and Sussex, but perhaps that will be part of the final EU divorce bill.

3. Ian Duncan Smith (RE-ENTRY)

‘The EU Owes Britain Billions’ declared the Daily Express’ front page lead story on Tuesday, to be known hereafter as ‘Legsit Day’. Shockingly, this turned out not to be fact – the story began ‘The EU could owe Britain billions of pounds in EU assets’ – but a notion from the brain of former work and pensions secretary IDS, who wants the EU to add up the value of all its buildings, divide the figure by 28 and then give Britain its stake back, preferably by next Tuesday, in a brown envelope, no questions asked.

It’s certainly a bold notion and one which quickly caught on with the rest of the Brexiteers polled by the Express. Jacob Rees-Mogg told the paper ‘I think we neither owe nor are owed any money’, and John Redwood admitted, ‘there is no legal power for us to make them pay’ and even UKIP’s Gerard Batten said: ‘We are not under any legal obligation to pay them anything, and the same applies to them.’ Poor old Iain No-Mates.

2. Paul Nuttall (UP 2)

Fresh from his creditable podium finish at the Australian Grand Prix, the loveable UKIP leader and Keymaster to Nigel Farage’s Zuul returned to assure fans that while he was seeking to rebrand the party, its name would stay as it is worth ‘millions of pounds’. Chinny reckon, as today’s kids almost certainly say.

Nuttall also declared that UKIP had originally gone for a purple and yellow branding ‘because there were no other colours available’. Admittedly things DO get a bit tricky if you rule out every shade of black and brown and just want everything to be white. Nuttall’s Ed Sheeran-like string of hits continued with a celebratory tweet of himself and party colleagues toasting Article 50 with bottles of Louis Vertay champagne, which the last time we looked came from France.

1. Nigel Farage (RE-ENTRY)

In a momentous week, Farage came close to a copy of The New European during his Good Morning Britain sofa tussle with our editor-at-large Alastair Campbell, but neglected to touch the paper, obviously concerned that our masthead would sear into his flesh and trigger a process under which his true vampire form would be revealed.

Spotted in Union Jack socks on Article 50 day, shortly before returning home to pick out and burn all the blue thread in protest against Nicola Sturgeon.

Nasty Nigel had earlier told listeners to his LBC show that ‘if Brexit is a disaster I will go and live abroad. I will go and live somewhere else’.

So stay strong readers, something positive WILL come out of all this!