The clandestine dinner in a swish London townhouse

THE setting was an elegant Victorian townhouse in London’s swish Chelsea.

The guests included six Tory donors and senior members of Best for Britain, a pressure group campaigning for a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.

The host was George Soros. The topic under discussion was overturning Brexit.

As Lord Malloch-Brown, the former Labour minister who now chairs Best for Britain, told the assembled guests: ‘The time is now.’

The hope appeared to be that the rich Conservative donors present that evening would provide the group with much-needed financial support for its anti-Brexit campaign. The identities of the donors have not been revealed.

The Daily Telegraph yesterday revealed the contents of a strategy document, leaked from a meeting of the Best for Britain group.

The plan was to ‘raise public support for Remain to a clear and growing national majority by June/July 201 and channelling that pressure into MPs’ mailbags and surgeries’.

The document concluded that the movement ‘must then win the meaningful vote that Mrs [Theresa] May has promised on her Brexit deal’, adding that if she were to lose, ‘it is likely to trigger a new referendum, or election’.