Brexit and the great liberal crack-up

Brexit may yet kill the Conservative party but it is exacting a cruel psychological torture on liberalism. Liberals are supposed to be the measured voice of reason – earnest, insufferable but reliably level-headed. Not anymore.

Liberals – or at least some of them – have gone quite mad over Brexit. There is almost no intrigue they will not seize on if it might explain away the last three years.

TV historian Dan Snow tweeted a photograph of his postal ballot and the Brexit Party leaflet he claimed had been delivered inside the same envelope. When celebrity Twitter flicks on its blue-tick sirens, craven officialdom comes running but they brought bad news. 

Snow’s local council released a statement saying postal votes were handled internally and double-checked; it was ‘very unlikely’ that Brexit Party literature could have arrived in the same envelope. ‘Rather,’ they said with no little diplomacy of phrasing, ‘it is likely that the leaflet was delivered on or around the same day as the postal voting pack, which is how this misunderstanding may have arisen’.