Political column - June 14

Then smile, shrug, and start to enjoy the absurdity of it all. Because there's nothing you can do, it's been left to the politicians. And you know what they're like.

Some absurdities are happening in plain sight. Hilary Benn doesn't actually believe in the UK exiting the European Union. He thinks it's a bad thing. Yet nobody asks whether it isn't strange that somebody who doesn't have his heart in the UK exiting the European Union is the chairman of the Commons select committee for Exiting the European Union.

Sir Keir Starmer's heart isn't in Brexit either. He thinks it's a bad thing and would rather we didn't. Yet he is the Labour Brexit spokesman, speaking for something he doesn't believe in.

How does that work then?

The resignation speech in the Commons by Phillip Lee - surely you haven't forgotten who he is already? - sums up a lot about where Britain finds itself.

What he said, more or less, was sometimes the British public gets things wrong, and it is the duty of MPs to protect them from themselves.

On that basis the June 2016 referendum has the same status and importance as an opinion poll.

Then there is the great paradox that Brexit is meant to take back control and return power to Parliament, a body in which both the majority of the Commons and the Lords is of the Remain persuasion. So giving power to MPs also gives them the power to stop Brexit, an opportunity some of them, now all that "I accept the referendum result" lip service is being forgotten, are not going to pass up.

I have a theory about why Remain unexpectedly lost. It was because the Remain campaigners with their long faces and dire warnings were not the sort of people you'd want to have a party with. With the release of the new Dad's Army stamps, Remain were the Private Frazer while Leave were Private Walker.

Let's dip into a discussion on Sky News featuring Shrewsbury & Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski (Leave), fellow Tory MP George Freeman (Remain), and Labour's Sunderland MP Bridget Phillipson (Remain) to capture the Parliamentary mood after the promises, deals, pledges, concessions, and wheeler-dealing in the Commons this week.

Mr Kawczynski: "It's a real regret for me that Conservative colleagues are trying to bind the hands of our own Prime Minister when she tries to negotiate the very best deal for the United Kingdom.

"At this juncture we need to ensure that the Prime Minister has as much flexibility and leeway to negotiate the very best deal for the United Kingdom.

"Any indication or sign that we are trying to bind her hands in these negotiations will give succour to the European Commission and those people who want Britain to have a bad deal or a deal which is so bad it will force the United Kingdom to come begging to re-enter the club, and that is completely unacceptable.

"I find it absolutely unforgivable for any Conservative MP to try to bind the hands of the Prime Minister in this monumental decision."

The No Deal option, he said, must be kept on the table.

George Freeman: "There are some of our colleagues who actively want us to pull out of Europe and trigger a European crisis and secondly actively want this to be a moment for the UK to have a crisis and a moment where we have to shrink the state and embrace the Singapore model."

Bridget Phillipson: "I want a sensible Brexit which protects the jobs and living standards of the people I represent. I don't think the majority of my constituents want to be poorer, out of work and to see child poverty rise, and that will be the direct consequence of where we're heading."

There we have our enlightenment then. A Conservative Party at war, in which the "rebels" these days are - and how ironic given the history - Europhiles, and a Labour MP whose constituents voted heavily for Leave, despite all the dire economic warnings from everybody from David Cameron downwards, yet who is ignoring their message "in their best interests."

With all this being played out by our politicians, the Private Frazer stamps will no doubt be the most popular.

They cost £1.45, by the way.