Return of The Blob: This fantasy villain is the Brexiteers’ final weapon

The Blob is therefore the UK’s version of the all-controlling “deep state” in Trump’s MAGA fantasies. It is a  huge lie spread by swivel-eyed loons, who refuse to see the reality before their eyes but are perfectly willing to invent endless conspiracy theories which explain why the world is not as they want it to be. 

The Blob’s power seems almost unlimited. This time, as revealed by the Daily Telegraph on its front page, it has forced the government to scrap its plan to abolish all EU laws by the end of the year. This Blob-led betrayal has outraged the few who still admit to being hardcore Brexit believers; on Thursday morning poor Jacob Rees-Mogg was forced to put aside his porridge and kippers and spout nonsense about it on the Today programme.

The idea that the apocalypse of EU laws, which Rishi Sunak used in his attempt to beat Liz Truss in a famously daft video involving a shredder, has actually been abandoned precisely because it was harmful, stupid and a waste of time, does not and cannot even occur to the minds of the Brexit ultras – even though almost every firm and industry you could mention was begging the government to stop this madness. 

Industry craves consistency. It likes rules that have been in place for years. If that is going to change, industry needs to know well in advance what the rules it will be forced to use actually are. 

Oddly, industry likes rules and regulations that are accepted in its major export market – which is still the EU.  This is the fact that the Brexiteers can never come to terms with: the vast majority of these laws are ones that the UK helped to negotiate and which are popular with industry because they ensure access to the single market. Any imagined savings that might be made from changing or abolishing them – which was Rees-Mogg’s argument before resuming his kedgeree and Olde English marmalade – would be more than wiped out by extra red tape and loss of sales.

What Sunak and Kemi Badenoch has done, then, is a victory for common sense and for, funnily enough, sovereignty. Any changes to EU laws (and they still want to get rid of around 600 by the end of the year) can now be debated and voted on in parliament, something that those pro-Brexit MPs seem strangely reluctant to allow. 

Unfortunately, the facts of the matter do not really matter that much to the likes of Rees-Mogg. He and his dwindling band of supporters now accuse this PM of being in thrall to the Blob. On Today, Rees-Mogg accused Sunak of “acting like a Borgia” – which will conjure up some interesting mental pictures for those who remember the steamy 1980s BBC series about the power-hungry clan – but to those Brexiteers without the benefit of a classical education the PM is a sell-out and a turncoat. The list of traitors is getting longer and longer, as the willingness of the government to do stupid things to placate the ERG seems to be dwindling. 

Meanwhile, vast sectors of British business will be sighing with relief and getting on with their jobs rather than looking over their shoulders and wondering what this bunch of idiots is going to do to make their lives more difficult, again. 

The Blob is the last weapon of the Brexit crowd – the latest useful enemy of their noble cause, that they can use to stir up the true believers. Like the baying mob on CNN which loves Trump despite all the evidence, this bunch of conspiracy nutters can no longer see or deal with reality. So there has to be a Blob out there somewhere, frustrating their dreams.