England was not involved in tedious, complex and inevitably disappointing negotiations in order to find the least worst compromise and make the best of a very bad job. It was being insulted. It demanded cake and Barnier sent it tennis balls. The duty of the people of England when the honour of its rulers was at stake was always plain: to suffer gloriously for as long as it took for the whole thing to peter out in exhaustion and futility. Rees-Mogg suggested that the rewards of Brexit might be fully apparent in fifty years’ time, but, given his expansive sense of history, why not make it a
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