A good idea to toast PM’s real pain with champagne, Jacob?

AJUBILANT Jacob Rees-Mogg hosted a champagne party to toast Theresa May’s historic Brexit defeat on Tuesday night. Ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis and former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson were among more than 30 MPs invited to Rees-Mogg’s sixbedroom, grade-II listed home, which is a fiveminute walk from Parliament. Guests were greeted with a flute of fizz at the door.

Leading Brexiteers including Labour MP Kate Hoey and the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith also attended. The gathering was held less than two hours after members of the European Research Group — which Rees-Mogg chairs — helped to reject the Prime Minister’s deal by a majority of 230.

The party occasionally spilled out on to the street, onlookers said. When asked to identify what they were drinking, one said: ‘Champagne, of course.’ And while Mr Rees-Mogg and the former Welsh secretary Sir John Redwood denied the event was a celebration, the veteran Brexiter Sir Bill Cash did not. ‘It was a party and a celebration,’ he said.

Brexiters are famously difficult to please, and one source reportedly said: ‘It was organised at the last minute so there were no canapes or nibbles,’ adding, ‘but his wife was a wonderful host.’

Mr Johnson arrived at the party on a bicycle with the lights turned off and his head bowed, according to onlookers. He left after an hour, saying to a waiting journalist that he had not had a drink at the event.

Former Tory minister Mark Francois told the BBC the mood at the gathering was positive after the vote.

But a May Loyalist branded the gathering ill-judged and ‘not what any true Tory wants to see — a champagne celebration of a dark dark day for the Conservatives, toasting the PM’s pain.’ No wonder Boris was so coy about what he was drinking.