Beasts of the Benelux

Not for nothing are they called the Low Countries. A Luxembourg MEP recently tabled a below-the-belt proposal whereby subjects of the Empire could retain their links to the European Union, with all the unpatriotic human rights entailed thereby, and even a substantial risk of becoming immigrants. This idea has now received approval from the leader of the conspiracy to deprive Britain of its club privileges the moment Britain leaves the club, who on top of his other derelictions is a former prime minister of Belgium, location of the dreaded Strasbourg. The proposal may be serious, or it may be a superb piece of Brexiter-trolling by the EU's grown-up community. If the latter, the squeals from the Westminster wendy-house have doubtless warmed their nasty little cardiac cockles.

Responding to the suggestion that British subjects might pay an annual fee to keep their citizenship of Europe, one Andrew Bridgen went right off the deep end: "It’s an attempt to create two classes of UK citizen," other than the eternal and necessary classes of rich and poor, "and to subvert the referendum vote," which was, contrary to common prejudice, entirely concerned with the question of whether we should all march in step with the whims of Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Andrew Bridgen. "The truth is that Brussels will try every trick in the book to stop us leaving", even sinking unto the depths of asking us nicely to state our wishes with something vaguely approaching coherence. It is certainly a novelty to see a Conservative MP (who in happier days referred to opponents of Twizzler Lansley's NHS vandalism as Stalinists) opposing the idea that British people should be free to spend their own money as they think fit.