It's party time!

So Farage has launched The Brexit Party. My first thought is that he wouldn't have to had he not made a massive pig's ear of Ukip. He could have built a sustainable organisation but instead he built a cult of personality and surrounded himself with quarterwit lackeys. There was nothing else it could do but implode only for the brand to be hijacked by the Tommy Robinson brigade so as to concentrate full time on grunting about muslims.

Moreover, the main reason we are even considering euro-elections is precisely because the leave movement didn't have a plan which is very much the fault of Farage and it was his lack of leadership that allowed Vote Leave Ltd to steal the campaign away from Ukip.

If there is a reason to vote for a Brexit party, or any party at all it escapes me. As much as I do not wish to lend legitimacy to that entity by voting in its elections, it is little more than opinion poll. I suppose there is some merit in a show of force to remind politicians at home that leavers mean business, and if you feel that way out don't let me stop you, but I'll be sitting this one out.

I could be persuaded to vote were any of the four Brexit parties actually constructively engaged in seeking a viable outcome but this will be the same jamboree as usual with Farage, Tice and Ms Rees-Mogg grunting the same empty slogans and demanding to leave without a deal. There's no way I'm voting for that. These are people who have gone to extended lengths to ensure they own the narrative and undermined any hope of securing a viable Brexit outcome.

Then of course, if there is to be a vote in the European parliament, the remainers will vote against the deal that takes us out of the EU and so will the Brexity mob. It's going to come down to how desperate the others are to get rid of us. And then if we do end up remaining there's is no utility in having thicko Ukippy MEPs who don't apply themselves.

We should also note that this is all well downstream of the real business of Westminster. In order for the European parliament to have its say, parliament needs to ratify a withdrawal agreement which probably won't happen, except in an emergency vote at the last minute, but in all likelihood it will end up with the usual fannying around until October when it comes down to a coin toss of no deal versus revoke. There will be no further extension.

Between now and then, anybody serious about leaving in a controlled and orderly way must make the case for the withdrawal agreement, suboptimal though it may be. What the Brexit mob want is to be out and out now with no ties to Brussels. This is a pipedream and one that will do enormous damage, leading to an even worse deal than the one on the table.

If we leave without a deal, the moment the penny drops that we are a third country and will be treated as such, it won't take very long for the government to collapse, and then the next administration, in a blind panic to restore any kind of trade functionality will be over to Brussels with the begging bowl, where to even start the talks the EU will present us with a bill along with no deal reparations, and a demand we sign up to a variant of the backstop.

The Brexit blob has convinced itself that we have nothing to fear from no deal - and if the Brexit Party sees fit to put the idiot Tice front and centre then we can say this is not a movement with an intellectual foundation. It will be every bit as inept and risible as Ukip and if this is the best they can come up with after being outplayed at every turn then it deserves to lose. They've learned nothing.

Being that politics is now atomised every which way I do not see that I have a dog in the fight and it all seems rather futile. Sometimes all you can do is watch and let it unfold. Then it will be left to the rest of us to clear up the mess they make of it.