Nigel Farage has a new Brexit bus and the internet isn't impressed

[Denzil_DC]

1. I had to turn off the car radio the other day.

Radio 4's 5pm news programme had just come on, and the first headline was Farage launching his "new" party. For a start, it's not a new party, it's just been formally registered. Its previous leader resigned earlier in the year after old anti-Islamic tweets of hers were uncovered - so much for the Brexit Party being the less viciously racist half-brother of UKIP. And the very first headline?! It's news, but surely not the most significant development in that news cycle.

What I did hear of Farage's spiel before hitting the off button was the same old guff with no solutions other than going all-out for no deal, after which the EU will apparently be chasing us down the street waving fistfuls of trade agreements. Simples.

I guess we can hope that the hardline pro-Brexit vote will be split between UKIP and the Brexit Party and there'll be some healthy mutually destructive backbiting between the two (what I've seen so far of the new crop of UKIP candidates look really appealing). On the other hand, the D'Hondt system is very unpredictable, and having two such parties in contention might work in their favour. Then there's money, of which both Farage and UKIP are reportedly short at the meoment. I hope (faint hope) the Electoral Commission is going to be a bit more on the ball than it has been in the past.

I also hope we don't have to rely solely on the likes of Led By Donkeys to hold Farage et al. to account. Circumstances have moved on, but Farage's often contradictory arguments haven't, and he can't be allowed to continue to get away with spouting his usual Trumpish deliberately broadbrush truth-challenged appeals to the lowest instincts unchallenged.