The shame of Jacob Rees-Mogg

Until this morning Jacob Rees-Mogg had had a remarkable Brexit. From being an obscure backbencher he had risen, without any formal position, to being just about the most powerful figure in the Conservative party after the Prime Minister. He controlled a party within a party, influencing the votes of seventy or so MPs. He became the most lucid of all MPs on Brexit, speaking with a logic and clarity which disarmed his opponents. He introduced a term to the debate – vassalage – which identified perfectly the weakness of Theresa May’s deal, and emphasised how the EU had successfully driven the Prime Minister into a corner.

But this morning, all that has gone. In a piece in the Daily Mail, Rees-Mogg has revealed his weak knees as sure as if he were a contestant in a Butlins’ competition. He apologises, as he put it, for changing his mind. He will now vote for May’s deal – assuming, that is, he gets a chance. There is no guarantee that May will be able to bring her deal back to the Commons for a third time, given that John Bercow has said he will block any such motion unless it carries substantial changes from the last such motion. Rees-Mogg says he will do so because, while he still thinks the deal is bad, it is less bad than the alternatives. To read between the lines, he fears, as Theresa May has put it herself, that the choice now lies between her deal or no Brexit – and he wants to leave the EU at all costs.

Yet that doesn’t fit in with his previous pronouncements on the matter, which had argued that May’s deal represents to the worst of all worlds – finding ourselves bound by EU laws but without any say in making those laws.