The Brex Factor: Kate and Katie are the Bridesmaids of Brexit

Brushing off the departures of the European Medicines Agency to Amsterdam and the European Banking Authority to Paris, the bibulous Talksport host assured listeners that ‘if we get a good Brexit there will be 5,000 jobs created for every 1,000 lost’.

So chill out, everyone. If you’re not reassured by a man whose economic credentials are scoring 70 goals in 154 appearances for Ipswich Town between 1976-83 and currently resembling Barney The Dinosaur’s even more purple brother, who WILL you be reassured by?

9 PETE NORTH

The editor of the Leave Alliance blog was one of a very few celebrating as British cities were banned from the European Capital of Culture scheme. ‘No, people won’t visit your city because of an EU-funded jamboree,’ he tweeted. ‘I will not drive to Hull to see an ultra feminist’s statue of a tree made out of plaster cast moulds of her minge. Government sponsored art is fucking stupid.’

North later added ‘Liverpool was a shithole in 2008 and it is going to stay a welfare slum unless we address the fundamental economic issues.’ In fact, Liverpool’s year as a Capital of Culture brought in an extra 3.2m visitors to the city and generated more than £750m for the local economy. But what significance do actual facts have next to Pete’s tired, desperate-to-shock sub-Liddle shtick?

8 DANIEL HANNAN

‘Crude and puerile… a boastful, belligerent man-child… a charlatan’. Just some of the kind words Hannan had for Arron Banks in a lengthy hit piece arguing that any controversy surrounding the Leave.EU benefactor, who is being investigated by the Electoral Commission, should not call the referendum’s result into question.

But what of the simultaneous EC investigation into a potentially unlawful £625,000 donation to fashion student Darren Grimes by Vote Leave, of which ‘Brain of Brexit’ Hannan was a campaign committee member? Oddly, there was no mention of this in Desperate Dan’s 1,000 words…

7 JACOB REES-MOGG

Nigel Farage appears to have dealt a fatal blow to the Moggmentum campaign by predicting that Victorian undertaker Jacob would be the next Tory leader. The nicotine-stained man-frog is known for his disastrous tipping, having claimed before the last general election that there would be a UKIP surge (their share collapsed by 10.8%) and that Theresa May would win by 65 seats (she lost 13 seats and her overall majority). And, famously, on referendum night he declared that ‘it looks like Remain will just edge it’, inadvertently helping allowing several investors to ‘short’ the pound and make money. Nigel’s own director of communications in Brussels, Hermann Kelly, is claimed to have made almost £10k by doing just that.

6 MICHAEL GOVE

Fake news on social media ‘corrupts’ and ‘distorts’ political decision-making, according to a speech by the Environment Secretary. Can you think of another example of something completely fake which might have corrupted and distorted political decision-making? Answers on the side of a big red bus.

5 TIM MONTGOMERIE

The Conservative activist and former Times journalist denied he was involved with the shadowy, Brexit-steering Legatum Institute, until having to admit he actually was. Montgomerie, who was Iain Duncan Smith’s chief of staff during the final weeks of his abysmal spell as Tory leader, had initially replied ‘I’m not’ to a Twitter enquiry about why he was ‘part of Legatum, which is owned by a disaster capitalist from New Zealand’. Three days later he wrote that the think tank had paid him to work for a year in 2015 and that now ‘I am an honorary fellow of LI’. So, not involved at all.

4 GEORGE GALLOWAY

Brexity Lycra cat Georgie turned up on hard-right website Westmonster to rail against the £100million Theresa May is spending on counteracting Russsian disinformation.

Why this should so exercise the man who since November 2013 has been presenting a weekly show on Kremlin-backed television station Russia Today remains a complete mystery, but we salute lifelong socialist Galloway’s courage and indefatigability in lining up with other Westmonster faves like Nigel Farage, Paul Nuttall and Breitbart’s Raheem Kassam in order to make his point.

3 SAMMY WILSON

The Democratic Unionist Party’s Brexit spokesman rubbished Labour’s Keir Starmer for being too well-prepared and knowledgeable. He told Politico that Starmer ‘might be clever… but that is not what you need if you are going to try and mount an effective campaign. Sometimes [you need] someone with less grasp of detail, less clever.’

Wilson, who opposes abortion, LGBT rights and same-sex marriage, added: ‘I find the Remainers a bunch of bores anyway… I really can’t think of anybody who would enthuse me, and they are all such a bunch of misery-guts, too.’

2 NIGEL FARAGE

The NSMF has been caught talking meatballs about Sweden once again. Farage told listeners of his LBC programme that in joggers in the city of Oskarshamn are so scared of going out at night that they ‘will have the option of being accompanied by armed police officers… This is something that the local inspector thinks will make people a bit safer at night’.

Surprisingly, this turned out to be untrue. In fact, Inspector Peter Karlsson has started the jogging group to promote exercise in the dark winter months – at this time of year, the sun only rises in Oskarshamn at 8am and sets just after 3pm – and says there is little local crime. Police who accompany the runners are armed only because that is standard protocol when on duty. Another complete misreading of the facts to suit his own ends by Nigel Farage.

1 KATE AND KATIE

Kate Hoey managed to unite the two Irelands, in laughter at her Trumpesque plan to make the Republic pay for a border of Brexit’s own making. Katie Hopkins united the rest of us, also in fits of giggles, after she proved too extreme to remain on even Mail Online’s payroll. With all this hilarity, can a mismatched buddy movie with Kristen Wiig as a dog-whistling control freak and Melissa McCarthy as a wire-haired orange-clad screwball be far away?