Talks? way... the No silly old sausage was playing hard to get

At a vegan-friendly arts centre in Hastings yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn said ‘Labour is open to discussions’ on Brexit.

But he wasn’t going to talk to theresa May about it. nope. not until she agreed to agree with him.

You could call it the Michel Barnier approach to negotiations. Brussels refused to discuss Brexit with Mrs May until she accepted its timetable. He’s a quick learner, our Jeremy.

Mr Corbyn was on ripely wriggly form at this brief speech, peering over his spectacles, squinting, screwing up his face and playing hard to get.

For months he had pushed Mrs May to include the Opposition in talks. now that she had agreed to do that, he had consulted his diary and found he was having his hair done that night. Odysseus’s Penelope undid her knitting every night in order to preserve her virtue. Mr Corbyn just wants to avoid having to make a decision on Brexit. Hence his scornful ‘the offer of talks is simply a stunt’.

Hastings is the unsafe seat of Pensions Secretary amber rudd. Mr Corbyn took a few swipes at her, accusing her of cruelty to old age pensioners. Mr Corbyn himself is 69.

around him sat a throng of party activists, some of them very much two-pudding types. they clapped enthusiastically when he kept saying he had been ‘clear…very clear…we are clear’ on his Brexit position. When politicians say they have been clear, they have usually been as obscure as the windows of a municipal urinal.

He insisted he would not talk to Mrs May until she agreed to ‘rule out’ a no-deal Brexit. Silly sausage. Plenty of voters think no Deal could be terrific yet the elite refuses to contemplate it.

He criticised the spending of public money on no Deal preparations, arguing that it could be better used on social care, housing, etc. no one asked what he thought of handing the EU 39 billion of our jimmies.

Should Brexit be delayed? ‘that may well be the case,’ he murmured, eyes narrowed. What about a second referendum? ‘it’s an option,’ he said, stroking his chin. a remainer in the audience had a wonderful idea: the ballot paper on a second referendum should contain only ‘a choice between remaining options’.

this was presumably a joke but no one laughed at her suggestion. they just nodded and turned, mutely, to the bearded old sage in their midst.

a similar, dazed quality was evident at a London event an hour or so earlier when a little knot of richly- attired tory remainers gathered in a modernist hotel basement to promote the idea of a second referendum. You’ve enjoyed the Brexit experience so much that you’re gagging for more? Let’s do it all over again!

after some pretty filthy continentalstrength coffee, the meeting was opened by Phillip Lee, MP for Bracknell, lugubrious to the point of funereal.

He kept saying ‘ let’s be straight’ but then went and spoilt it slightly by claiming ‘this is not a campaign to overturn Brexit’. Oh come off it!

HEiDiallen, that shouty MP from Cambridgeshire, sauntered up to say ‘okay, so this is not easy, cos no one actually wants a second referendum’.

a cross between Cleopatra and David Brent, Ms allen said she knew nothing about politics but she did know about business and she regarded voters as ‘customers’ who had to be offered a