MANDRAKE: Gina Miller tempted to sign petition to silence her

A change.org petition addressed to the PM with the objective of ‘stopping Gina Miller from meddling with democracy and her desire for a new court case’ has been set up by one Simon Nicklin. Although it hasn’t captured the public imagination in the way that the petition to revoke Article 50 has on the parliamentary website – six million signatures and counting – it would appear to have won the support of almost 10,000 people.

‘I’m tempted to sign this myself, on the basis that it shouldn’t actually be necessary for an individual citizen to have to hold the government to account over Brexit in the way that I’ve had to,’ says Gina, with typical chutzpah. ‘The sad thing is I haven’t any choice when I see the lies and selfishness of so many of our politicians, putting their own careers before their country.’

Gina’s grasp of detail made her a deadly opponent of May in the court case she brought against her and her government to ensure that parliamentary sovereignty is upheld. A number of Brextremists would certainly be relieved to see Gina – the boss of the Lead Not Leave campaign – withdrawing from the debate. They include Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has a habit of puling out of media shows and events when he discovers she is on, too.

In a long and often illiterate tirade, Nicklin writes on his petition: ‘We wish to see the government left alone, in order that they may be able to continue with negotiations and then bring the meaningful vote to parliament, without all these unnecessary and confrontational divisive [sic] attempts to overturn the Brexit result.’ Nicklin appears to have forgotten that it was only thanks to Gina that parliament gets to have a say in the matter.

Past glories

It would appear that Sir David Barclay, the press baron, and Terry Smith, the investment manager, are not the only fanatical Brextremists with a love of black-and-white war films.

‘Nigel Farage watches them all the time, too, in addition to Dad’s Army,’ one of his former associates tells me. ‘At a dinner party not so long ago, he began to recite, word-for-word, an entire episode, before he was eventually told to keep quiet as it was becoming very boring.’

Cassandra

Christopher Booker may have fallen out of favour at the Sunday Telegraph with his excoriating columns about Brexit, but, as the paper’s longest-serving writer, it was only proper he should be allowed to say farewell to his readers now that he’s decided to retire.

After I pointed this out to the paper’s management, who had chosen not to explain his absence, it was pleasing to see that Booker – sadly not in the best of health – finally got to deliver his valedictory the other day.

It should serve as an example to his colleagues, who are now all too willing to retail not their own views about Brexit, but those of their owners. Booker wrote how he had watched ‘aghast at how our infantilised politicians are sleepwalking us towards disaster over Brexit’.

Driving Jacob

Flush with their £1 billion bung from Theresa May – and doubtless with more on the way if they actually give her the support she paid for – the DUP can now keep Jacob Rees-Mogg in the manner to which he’s become accustomed. Mandrake hears the DUP forked out £405 for a driver – plus £107 for flights – for his recent excursion to Ballymena for a fundraising event.

Rees-Mogg got a chance to hobnob with Arron Banks, but there was, alas, no sign of Nigel Farage, who presumably couldn’t get the DUP to run to a private jet, his preferred means of transport.