‘I’m not appealing to the nutter vote’

A woman dressed as a nun is standing outside the London Palladium with a placard, warning about ‘an evening with a religious extremist’. She refers to Jacob Rees-Mogg, who sold all 2,300 seats at the venue in a fortnight — a feat that enraged his critics all the more.

The nun eventually found a loudspeaker to address Spectator subscribers, who waved cheerfully as they filed in to the theatre. This stage has played host to entertainers like Bruce Forsyth, Marvin Gaye, Tommy Steele and Jimmy Tarbuck — and now, the backbench MP for North East Somerset, offering an evening of political discussion. We live in strange times.

He arrives late, fresh from a meeting with the European Research Group of Tory Brexit MPs, where they had to accept their game was up. He says he’s ready for no deal. ‘But I don’t think we’ve got the votes in parliament for it,’ he admits. So he has changed tactics, and is ready to back an extension of Article 50 in the hope of improving Theresa May’s deal. ‘If three months’ delay is the price we have to pay to get out properly… well, three months in the history of our great nation is a mere bagatelle. We can live with that. So we are very optimistic and we will make sure that Brexit succeeds.’

I put it to him that, right now, Brexit looks like a mess — and one made worse by his botched attempt to depose the Prime Minister, further diminishing her authority. ‘I think perhaps you have a kindly view of the authority that the Prime Minister had earlier in this process,’ he says. So that’s his defence: that her authority couldn’t have got any lower? ‘Broadly: yes,’ he replies.