A knight in shining amour?

With the government’s disastrous Brexit strategy disintegrating before their very eyes, who better to come charging to the rescue than mullet-haired Tim Martin; arch Brexiter and chairman of J D Wetherspoon.

Martin, of course, was one of the few British business leaders to back the Leave Campaign, and during the EU referendum campaign distributed hundreds of thousands of pro-Brexit beer mats to the group’s pubs. So today’s announcement, via Twitter, that, “We've placed 500,000 beer mats in our pubs with a hard-hitting message on Brexit to parliament”, hardly comes as a surprise. The mats list three points in what the group describe as “The Wetherspoon Manifesto”.

It states that the UK should unilaterally grant rights of citizenship to legal EU immigrants.

Additionally, it points to the fact that the EU currently charges taxes on food imported from outside the EU, and that from 2019 the government can and should eliminate these import taxes- which will also mean that EU food imports will continue to be tax-free. Wetherspoon argues that this will result in a reduction in food prices in shops and pubs.

The manifesto also says that from March 2019 the government should stop paying the EU £200 million per week, stressing that the money disappears into EU coffers which have not been audited properly since 1994.

The first point makes perfect sense, as it is high time Theresa May’s government stopped using the large number of EU migrants who have, quite legitimately, made their home in Britain, as "bargaining chips" in their increasingly fraught Brexit negotiations with the European Union.  These people have contributed to the UK economy, as well as paying taxes here, and the uncertainty they have faced as a result of “Call me Dave’s” reckless referendum gamble, is unacceptable in a civilised society.

The last point about the EU accounts being un-audited, it blatantly untrue, but continues to be bandied about by increasingly desperate pro-Leave Campaigners.

According to the BBC, “The EU's accounts are scrutinised by the Court of Auditors, which checks whether they correctly reflect the spending of the EU budget. The latest report, published in 2015 for accounts in 2014, explicitly said that the auditors were "signing off the accounts" as they have done every year since 2007”.

The middle point about food prices seems totally at odds with a claim made by the chairman of Sainsbury's, who recently told the Sunday Times that imported food prices could rise by 22% without a 'deal' with the EU. Similar claims have been made by the CBI and other organisations.

Whatever views they might have on Brexit, many have called into question the wisdom of mixing beer with politics, as numerous comments on Twitter have pointed out. The cynics amongst us might also argue that the largest two groups amongst Mr Martin’s customers (pensioners and the work-shy), are also those who voted in large numbers for Brexit.

Tim is, in effect, preaching to the converted, but is no doubt anxious to keep these two groups on board, in spite of the obvious hit the UK economy and living standards have already taken, since last year’s referendum result. It’s difficult to say what his motives are, but like those of the government, they’re probably not altruistic.

The final words on this matter can be neatly summed up by the man who started this nonsense, and whose memory is commemorated by the Blue Plaque above.