The Brex-Factor: Spider-Man makes a total brick of himself

He’s already known for Victorian attire, issuing coded threats via the press and having three words in his name. Now a Sky News interview at his palatial home reveals he has a large collection of knives. Could it be time to ask: Is Jacob Rees-Mogg really Jack The Ripper?

GERARD BATTEN

Asked by the BBC to comment on a local election night in which his party lost 123 seats, retaining only three, Batten said it proved UKIP was still ‘a force to be reckoned with’. Batten also accidentally referred to a previous ‘Kipper leader as ‘Paul Nutters’, making us look forward to the day a future captain of the UKIP Titanic thanks ‘Gerard Batty’ for all his good work.

NIGEL FARAGE

‘There are voices now in Ireland saying maybe the Brits are right,’ declared the nicotine-stained man-frog back in February as he made a Dublin conference speech claiming that the tide in the Republic was turning in favour of Irexit.

Farage’s intervention certainly seems to have caused a change of opinion. Before his visit, polls showed 88% of the Irish wanting to stay in the EU. Now the figure for remain is 92%.

JOHN REDWOOD

In a remarkable appearance on Andrew Castle’s LBC show, the Vulcan refused to discuss the customs union with Femi Oluwole of anti-Brexit group Our Future Our Choice. He told Castle: ‘I don’t think so. I wasn’t told we were having a debate. You told me we were doing an interview.’

To misquote Monty Python: ‘When danger reared its ugly head, He bravely turned his tail and fled, Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Redwood.’

BORIS JOHNSON

The foreign secretary attacked as ‘crazy’ Theresa May’s plans for a customs partnership, shortly before a photo emerged of him standing in front of a plane giving a thumbs-up while holding a document detailing Theresa May’s plans for a customs partnership!

Surely Boris can’t be serious? Altogether now: ‘He is serious, and don’t call him Shirley.’

GODFREY BLOOM

Getting more and more reasonable in his old age, Farage’s former flatmate has called for disgruntled Brexiteers to burn down parliament as it’s ‘the only option I can think of’.

Bloom, who left UKIP in 2013 shortly after criticising government aid to what he called ‘Bongo-Bongo land’, says on a YouTube video: ‘We’ve had a referendum, we’ve had a general election… the 17 million people who voted to leave have to go down to London and burn down the House of Commons and the House of Lords because that’s the only language these people understand.’

Once again, proof Godders is bloomin’ crazy.

DAVID DAVIS

Having assured us last September that ‘we can get a non-visible border operational by using the most up-to-date technology’ in Ireland, the Brexit secretary dodged committee requests for an update. It was left to junior minister Robin Walker to admit that no progress had been made on the hardware or software needed to make this happen.

Perhaps Davis should have heeded the words of the politician who wrote in the Guardian in 2008, ‘faced with intractable problems with political pressure for a solution the government reaches for a headline-grabbing high-tech ‘solution’. Rather than spend the resources, time and thought necessary to get a real answer, they naively grasp solutions that to the technologically illiterate ministers look like magic.’

The author of those prescient words was none other than… David Davis!

EXPRESS DESTROYERS

The Brexity Daily Express just loves to DESTROY. Variants on the word, usually in capital letters, have appeared in Express headlines 20 times in the last month, usually to celebrate a Brexiteer successfully making a point on TV without setting themselves on fire, breaking down in tears or running away, Redwood-style.

Examples include ‘Fox DESTROYS claims of post-Brexit armageddon’, ‘Peer DESTROYS anti-Brexit campaign in BRILLIANT Lords speech’, ‘Plot to reverse Brexit DESTROYED’, ‘Project Fear DESTROYED’, ‘Campaigner DESTROYS Labour politician’s call for second Brexit vote’ and ‘Redwood UTTERLY destroys EU for ‘behaving in a sad way”

Sadly, the Express story headlined ‘They’ll DESTROY Brexit, Lord Jones EXPLODES’ does not contain any pleasing details of Digby Jones actually exploding. Perhaps the evidence has been DESTROYED?

PAUL OAKLEY and JAMES DELINGPOLE

UKIP general secretary Oakley enlivened his party’s miserable local election post-mortem by comparing it to the Black Death. ‘It comes along, it causes disruption and then it goes dormant and that’s what we’re going to do,’ said the barrister, previously best-known for losing 36.8% of the party’s vote in Clacton at the 2017 general election.

Of course, the Black Death’s ‘disruption’ involved causing tens of millions of deaths across Europe, something not even UKIP have managed (yet). But in the face of ridicule Oakley was defended by alt-right scribe Delingpole, who wrote that those laughing at him were indulging in ‘ugly social justice warrior bullying… ‘point and shriek’ mobbing… dirty trick cheap shots’.

Delingpole added: ‘UKIP lost in these elections because the times are currently against them. They did not lose them because everyone who works for them is a risible incompetent who can’t help making the kind of stupid gaffes that have turned them into a laughing stock.’

Not everyone who works for them, no…

GAVIN WILLIAMSON

‘In a post-Brexit world, the only limit will be our imagination,’ claims the tarantula-loving defence secretary. If that trite phrase sounds like it comes straight from a marketing department, that’s because it does. ‘The only limit is your imagination’ has been used in promotional material for both Lego and its building block rival Knex.

Sadly for Gavin, putting Britain back together piece-by-piece after Brexit will be far more than child’s play…