Monty Python and the Holy Grail of Brexit

THE BBC’s head of comedy said this week that Monty Python’s Flying Circus would not be commissioned today. Too white, too Oxbridge.

But who needs Monty Python when we’ve got Brexit? It would be virtually impossible to invent anything more surreal than the latest high farce in Parliament.

The tortuous path out of the EU resembles a cross between the movie Monty Python And The Holy Grail and the Dead Parrot sketch. Also starring Westminster and Oxbridge- educated Dominique Grieve as the Upper Class Twit Of The Year.

In the original film, Theresa May would have played King Arthur, leading her Round Table on a quest for the elusive Holy Grail of Brexit, while her enemies throw increasingly bizarre obstacles in her way.

In the remake, she’s more like the Black Knight, who, despite losing both arms and both legs in a sword fight, insists: ‘It’s only a flesh wound.’

John Cleese and Co would be hard-pushed to improve on Grieve’s too- clever-by-half efforts to derail Brexit. First, he tables a wrecking amendment, written in lawyerly Pythonesque gibberish, and threatens to collapse the Government. Then he votes against his own amendment.

If that had happened in a Python sketch — rather than in real life, on the floor of the House of Commons — it would have been cut short by Graham Chapman, dressed as a colonel in the British Army, marching on set, shouting: ‘stop! This is getting silly!’

COINCIDENTALLY, Cleese, one of the few out-and-proud Brexiteers in showbiz, has been back in the news this week, describing Belgians as ‘lazy, fat, beer- sodden, pseudoFrench bastards’.

Not one of his cleverest lines, it has to be said. And certainly not a patch on Nigel Farage’s magnificent monstering of the then EU president Herman Van Rompuy, a Belgian, in the European Parliament. Farage told him: ‘You have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk.’

Rumpy Pumpy’s successors seem to have modelled their negotiating technique on Monty Python’s Argument sketch. DAVID Davis: i’m here to negotiate a smooth exit from the European Union.

Michel Barnier: OK, do you want the five-minute argument, or the full five-year transition?

Davis: i don’t want to argue, i want to negotiate a trade deal fair to both sides.

Barnier: it’s £40 billion for five minutes, and continued membership of both the customs union and the single market if you want the full five years.

Davis: very well, here’s the £40 billion. Now then, we have agreed on the irish border, haven’t we? Barnier: No. Davis: Yes we have. Barnier: No, we haven’t. This is completely unacceptable. and i’m not arguing any more until you pay me £40 billion.

Davis: i’ve just given you £40 billion. Barnier: No, you haven’t. Davis: Yes, i have. Barnier: i’m sorry, i’m not allowed to carry on arguing unless you agree to accept free movement of people and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

Davis: This isn’t negotiating, it’s blackmail. We might just as well stay in the EU.

Barnier: Good, so that’s agreed then.

So far, the EU has run rings round Davis, making the Department for Exiting the European Union look about as competent as the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Back home, the fanatical Tory Remain gang — especially Here We Go Soubry Loo — come across as the Judean suicide squad from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian. Meanwhile, the official Opposition is being run by Momentum, the Labour Party’s answer to the People’s Front of Judea. Or is it the People’s Liberation Front of Judea, constantly purging traitors and squabbling among themselves about ideological purity? Difficult to keep up these days. Life Of Brian also features the Judean Popular People’s Front, consisting of a single old man, who may have been the model for Jeremy Corbyn, hailed in some quarters as The Messiah.

Corbyn’s not the Messiah. He’s just a very naughty boy, especially when it comes to Brexit.

AT THE centre of it all, Theresa ‘ It’s Only A Flesh Wound’ May continues to insist that everything is on track.

Always look on the bright side of life, de-do, de-dooby dooby-doo.

That’s not how it looks from outside the Bubble to the 17.4 million who voted Leave and are now being crucified.

The longer this fiasco drags on, we can’t help concluding we’ve been sold a Dead Parrot.

(Man enters shop.) EXCUSE a complaint. me, sir. I wish to register We’re closed for lunch.

Never mind that, it’s about this Brexit, what I purchased here less than two years ago . . . What’s wrong with it?

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. It’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it. it’s not dead, it’s resting. This Brexit hasn’t moved an inch for the past two years.

Just a little procedural difficulty. it’ll be right as rain by March 2019.

This Brexit is no more, it has ceased to be, expired and gorn to meet its maker, kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil. This is an EX-BREXIT!

i suppose i’d better do something about it, then. How about a second referendum?