Brexfactor: Europe made us rich servants. Not a lot of people know that

Like a comedian who has long lost his audience but has been booked in for the whole season Farage continues to make misjudged forays from his bar stool at the Dog & Whistle into the outside world. Last week was no exception as he sallied out to the European Parliament to tell them: ‘You’re behaving like the mafia. You think we are a hostage. We’re free to go! We’re free to go!’

Sat right behind Farage, branded a clown after his outburst, was the new leading man in the UKIP circus Paul Nuttall – two elected UKIP representatives with seats in parliament. Once we have crashed out of Europe don’t expect that to be repeated ever again.

Ian Crossland

The EDL leader wasn’t too happy to be faced down by a smiling Saffiyah Khan, who went along to protest when the group held a demonstration in Birmingham. An account which appears to be that of Crossland’s posted on Facebook later that ‘she’s lucky she got any teeth left’. Charming. Khan’s brave stand won her wide praise though, and even the unlikely support of former EDL leader Tommy Robinson, who stuck up for her on Twitter. It says something when even Robinson thinks you went a bit over the top.

The Sun (Re- Entry)

The phoney war, triggered by Tory zombie Lord Howard, rumbled on in surprising ways as The Sun beamed ‘blunt messages’ on to the Rock of Gibraltar in order to intimidate our ‘Spanish amigos’. Cleverly, they did so in Spanish (Nuestra Roca No Se Toca) so as to aid understanding. The next day the good old Currant Bun appeared to be suddenly rather more friendly towards the Spaniards, proclaiming in a screaming front page headline: ‘You were only supposed to blow the bloody señors off!’ A bad pun and a bit of a mouthful.

Douglas Carswell

All’s well that’s Carswell … Fresh from overseeing the whittling down of his former party’s representation in Westminster to a big fat zero the Dougster merrily launched a book called Rebel: How to Overthrow the Emerging Oligarchy teaching everyone else how to do politics.

Forget geopolitics, historians will be most interested in how he describes his former leader who used to describe him as a ‘Tory Party Posh Boy’. Carswell does not disappoint labelling Farage a ‘purveyor of pound-shop populism’.

The Le Pens

Is a new row bubbling across the dinner table at Le Pen Towers? Far-right pin-up Marion Le Pen has called Brexit ‘formidable’ yet her auntie, presidential candidate Marine, has done something of a U-turn on an immediate Frexit if she wins next month. She has stated that she will make certain demands from the EU before triggering a referendum. Let’s hope the differences can be sorted out amicably, unlike another spat to engulf the Le Pen estate in 2014 when Marine’s father’s dogs apparently ate one of her beloved cats. She rounded up her numerous feline friends and fled. But on quitting the EU it seems she now wants to paws for thought. Ahem.

Michelle Dewberry (new entry)

Appearing on Question Time, former The Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry told the nation: ‘I am getting fed up with Brexit getting the blame for everything. We hear about extreme Brexit and Hard Brexit, I am fed up with it.’ But then it is perhaps not a shock that Hull-born Dewberry is easily bored. After crowning her the winner of The Apprentice Lord Sugar promptly parted company with his supposedly eager trainee, noting at the time: ‘[Picking Michelle] is the only one where you could say that there is some regret. And the regrets really were very much that she decided that what my company had to offer was not for her.’

Sir Michael Caine (New Entry)

In a poorly-judged effort to drum up interest in his new movie Going In Style, the former national treasure spoke out from the safety of the red carpet to announce: ‘I voted for Brexit. I’d rather be a poor master than a rich servant. It wasn’t about racism, immigrants or anything, it was about freedom.’

In fairness, Sir Michael should know a bit about a dodgy venture by a load of Englishmen to get out of Europe, which ends with the whole thing going off a cliff (and even involves a bus). Showing a healthy grasp of perspective, the veteran actor singled, as his motivation for backing Brexit, Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission President and former Prime Minister of Luxembourg. Or, as Caine diplomatically put it: ‘A country almost as small as a radio station.’

His remarks elicited this blushing response from that noted expert on experts Michael Gove: ‘I love Michael Caine. He’s the kind of expert I like.’