REMAINERS REALISE THEIR TIME IS RUNNING OUT

WINDOW stickers bearing the slogan “Our Future – Brexit Wrecks It” plopped on to doormats across the country this week. The national junk-mail drop was organised by the Brexit-loathing Lib Dems as part of the cross-party Remainer campaign to thwart the Leave vote of the 2016 EU referendum.

“We are willing to work with anyone – people from all parties and none – who want to put a stop to the madness of Brexit,” says Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable in an accompanying letter.

Scheming by Remain fanatics in the Westminster parties has been intensifying throughout the summer and some of the plots being discussed are becoming increasingly far-fetched.

One idea circulating among some pro-Brussels MPs this week involves launching a new centrist political party the day after Britain’s scheduled exit from the EU on March 29 next year. The new movement, its supporters say, will have a commitment to rejoin the EU at the first possible opportunity as its number one policy. Perhaps it could be christened the “Lock The Stable Door After The Horse Has Bolted” party.

An even more complicated plot dreamt up by some discontented Labour MPs involves their party winning the next election, then immediately replacing Jeremy Corbyn with a moderate pro-EU leader dedicated to taking Britain back into the bloc.

The signs are that even before Brexit day the opposition movement is preparing to dig in for a fight stretching into the longdistant future.

Anti-Brexit activists still dream of halting the process with a fresh EU referendum, with the People’s Vote campaign becoming increasingly noisy. Yet there seems to be little agreement about exactly what question a fresh Brexit poll should ask. This week saw the faintest of glimmers of movement from the previously intransigent EU Commission when chief negotiator Michel Barnier signalled that an unprecedented deal was possible. Optimism is growing among ministers that an agreement is within reach, even if the result is far from perfect.

Remainer hopes of the negotiations collapsing are fading and the window for triggering a second referendum is closing fast. Their fantasy plots for trying to turn the clock back after Brexit show they sense their time is running out.