There’s always someone else to blame for the Brexit mess

In a dismally competitive field, you might think Tory MP Andrew Bridgen must be the short-priced favourite for the next edition of the Deluded Brexiteer stakes. This newly-established classic always attracts a large field and the MP for North West Leicestershire’s suggestion that he, an Englishman, has the right to pop over to the Republic of Ireland and demand, and expect to be granted, an Irish passport shows that Mr Bridgen is in fine, early-season, form. He is tough to beat.

And yet his success cannot be taken for granted. This is a wide-open race. Consider, for instance, the credentials of Andrea Jenkyns. The member for Morley and Outwood declares that ‘It is better to go down fighting and honouring the democratic decision of our people than to be long remembered for waving a white flag and surrendering to EU demands’. And then there is Steve Baker, champion of the backwood Brexiteers, who deems the Maastricht Treaty negotiations – in which the UK government actually achieved its goals – a ‘debacle’ and considers ‘our predicament today very substantially John Major’s burden’.