The end of May

This week’s European election was always going to be pointless, at least from a British perspective. It is possible that the elected candidates will never even take up their seats. In one important sense, however, the election campaign has been useful: as a reminder of where public opinion stands on Brexit.

A few weeks ago, many believed that Change UK, the party founded by Labour and Conservative dissidents spoiling for a revocation of Article 50, would capture the public mood. Instead, another new political party would appear to have triumphed — a party set up with the sole purpose of expressing anger at the failure of Parliament to effect Britain’s departure from the EU on the date which had been set into law.

The Brexit party makes a point that most Remainers would agree with: the Tory handling of Brexit has been a national humiliation. The breezily optimistic scenarios that David Davis and others set out — that a trade deal would be negotiated in a brief trip to Berlin — have been terrifyingly wrong.