Jeremy Corbyn surprised colleagues, and possibly the Prime Minister, today by focusing on Brexit.

In the past Labour leader has steered away from the subject given his own lukewarm enthusiasm for the EU and the differing views among Labour voters on whether we should stay or leave.

So his decision to use all six questions to prod and probe the Government on its Brexit plans was insightful not so much for the answers he received from the Prime Minister (they were characteristically evasive) but because they point to a growing consensus among the Labour ranks on the issue.

The fact that Corbyn appeared at ease when he put the questions can be seen as further evidence of Labour cohesion.

Theresa May was typically evasive on Brexit

The Labour leader began with a snappy question on David Davis’s “Mad Max” comments.

Theresa May replied by claiming her party was united on Brexit and the only division was on the Labour frontbench.

You almost have to admire the Prime Minister for her jolly hockey sticks' chutzpah.

Her party is riven with division, incapable of agreeing a collective line in Cabinet, addicted to inconsistency and chronically wedded to fratricide but she gamely tried to score a political point by accusing the opposition of disarray.

Corbyn moved swiftly on to the contradictory comments from various Cabinet ministers on whether Brexit would result in a bonfire of regulations.

He then asked the Prime Minister to explain what her Brexit policy actually was.

He might as well have asked her why the sea is wet or the sky blue.

“A bespoke economic partnership,” she condescendingly replied.

She was equally dismissive when asked to explain how she could square leaving the customs union with not having a hard border in Northern Ireland.

Jeremy Corbyn feigned a yawn after the PM's terrible joke

The Government’s plans, she said, had been set out in a white paper last year.

This was deeply inadequate as a response, not least because these papers explore various options but fail to reach a firm conclusion.

Corbyn finished with his customary clip for social media by saying the Government was not on a path to Brexit but on the “road to nowhere.”

May used her final answer to shoehorn in a joke about the Labour leader being fond of Czechs.

It was executed with all the finesse of a ballet dancer in Wellington boots.

The Conservatives, for whom humour is never a high bar, loved it.

Corbyn treated it with the disdain it deserved and yawned.


Score: Jeremy Corbyn 2 Theresa May 1

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