The Brex Factor: Badger basher Bolton is Ukip’s serial culler

‘English is not taught in our schools and hasn’t been for decades,’ claimed the UKIP MEP on Twitter, surprising hundreds of English teachers across the nation and enraging thousands of pupils who must have assumed their own school didn’t get the memo.

Batten later claimed he had meant ‘English history is not taught in our schools and hasn’t been for decades’ – which also happens to be wilfully idiotic and wildly incorrect. What were they teaching them in school when Gerry was a lad?

9 Daniel Hannan

The Tory MEP’s ‘Brain of Brexit’ nickname gets stranger by the day. Having decreed a couple of weeks back – with, it must be said, absolutely zero evidence – that ‘our curry is going to get better’ after we leave the EU, Desperate Dan has stretched credulity to its limits once more in his Telegraph column.

‘What made us the world’s richest nation? We removed trade barriers and so put money into ordinary people’s pockets,’ Hannan wrote. And there were us fools thinking colonisation, slavery, gunboat diplomacy and imperial asset-stripping might have had something to do with it!

Could it be that Daniel picked up this unusual take during his schooldays at Gerry Batten’s History-Free Academy?

8 Jacob Rees-Mogg

The Victorian undertaker’s economic credentials have been called into question by a Financial Times report revealing that the investment fund he managed performed below the benchmark in four out of the five years he was in charge.

Analyst Damian Barry said the Lloyd George emerging markets fund showed ‘some poor stock selection’, with it almost 20% below the MSCI emerging market index in 2007, JR-M’s final year at the helm.

Ironically, the fund may have been held back by what a former colleague described as Moggy’s ‘conservative, careful’ approach – a far cry from the impatient, no deal-backing Hard Brexiteer of today.

7 Richard Littlejohn

‘Brexit has become all about politicians,’ moaned the veteran Daily Mail Cockernee columnist, begging the question of whom he’d like to negotiate the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU. Harry Kane, maybe? Or Dave out of Chas & Dave?

Richard also griped that ‘Boris should have got the job when Cameron fell on his sword, but the petty jealousy and resentment of so-called colleagues stopped him in his tracks.’ This point of view is sure to generate no resentment whatsoever among one of Littlejohn’s Mail colleagues, Sarah Vine, aka Mrs Michael Gove.

6 Mark Garnier

A Remain campaigner during the referendum, the Wyre Forest MP has done a reverse Damascene conversion since joining Liam Fox’s international trade department.

Proudly showing off the fetching scales which have fallen into his eyes while flogging himself like the albino monk in The Da Vinci Code, Garnier told the Commons: ‘Doom-mongers like me who during the referendum were part of the Project Fear campaign have been proved wrong. I think it is important that we stand up and say so far we have not got this right. And that is incredibly good news for Britain!’

If Garnier continues to quaff the Kool-Aid, perhaps his boss will promote him to the exciting new board of trade he announced this week. There is currently only one member… Dr Liam Fox!

5 Kirstene Hair

The Tory MP for Angus laid into SNP MEPs who voted for an EU motion saying Britain has not progressed far enough in Brexit negotiations, accusing them of ‘frustrating’ the will of the British people.

By contrast, Hair herself has a proud record when it comes to voting on the tricky subject of Europe. Last month she revealed that she didn’t cast her ballot in the June 2016 referendum because she couldn’t make her mind up between Leave and Remain.

4 Trevor Kavanagh

The Sun columnist wrote that Philip Hammond was ‘open to charges of high treason’ over his handling of Brexit, adding that the chancellor has ‘a surprisingly seedy reputation for double dealing and treachery’. The last man to be convicted of high treason in the UK was hanged and cartoonist ‘Brighty’ thoughtfully supplied an image of Hammond with his hands bound, walking to the gallows, to accompany the piece.

A fact to remember: Trevor Kavanagh is a board member of newspaper watchdog Ipso, which has a mission ‘to uphold the highest professional standards in the UK press’.

3 Nigel Farage

‘You look ridiculous Hillary Clinton,’ tweeted the man who looks like a human Freddo chocolate bar. ‘The rumour is that she wants to run again in 2020,’ he added later. ‘It’s time for her to recognise that it’s over.’

Sound advice from the man who failed to become an MP in 1994, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2015…

2 Chris Grayling

‘This was always going to be a long and difficult negotiation,’ the transport secretary told Andrew Marr. ‘Did anyone honestly think we would walk into a room with the European Union, shake hands and do a deal in half an hour?’

Well yes, actually. Take the Brexiteer who appeared on Sunday Politics in February 2016 to assure the nation that ‘of course there will be a free trade agreement that allows all our businesses to trade freely and it will take a relatively short period of time’. That impetuous young fool was none other than Chris Grayling.

1 Henry Bolton

UKIP’s new leader fell foul of the first rule of interviews: never allow yourself to be dragged into a discussion of which woodland creatures you could strangle to death.

Asked on Sky News about possible initiation ceremonies for UKIP leaders, the former Army officer replied: ‘The one that was probably most suitable for me was chasing a badger across Dartmoor, capturing it and then breaking its neck with one’s bare hands, which was a slightly unusual thing.’

Zoologists say that badgers get drunk by eating rotting, fermenting fruit, so what a spectacle we face in our fields after Brexit! Thousands of pissed badgers feasting on the remains of the stuff EU nationals used to pick, while Henry takes them out one-by-one!