What the Brexiteers have in common with the Corbynistas

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The most popular recent post on this blog has been the one about how the Corbynistas are following the situational logic of all revolutions.

Part of that logic, at least, has also been adopted by the supporters of Brexit.

I have in mind this paragraph from the post:

I would add that the failure of the revolution is always blamed on sabotage and the new regime takes brutal action against the supposed culprits. Once they have been eliminated, the people are told, all the promises of a better world that accompanied the revolution will be fulfilled.

Brexit, we have been told, will make everything better. British trade will boom, immigration will fall and errand boys will once more whistle in the street.

When all that fails to happen - as it will even if Brexit proves possible - then the Brexiteers; need to find traitors will become urgent.

In fact it is happening already. Step forward Conservative MP Stephen Baker:

"Any official working to oppose our exit from the EU should be summarily fired. If necessary, emergency legislation should be passed to make it possible."

British Conservatism, at its most thoughtful, is suspicious of constitutional innovation, respectful of practical expertise and resistant to overheated rhetoric about the will of people. Baker wants to trash all that.

Someone recently said, not unfairly, that the advisers clustered around Jeremy Corbyn resembled a Russian Revolution re-enactment society.

Baker would not look out of place as a member. He is a strange kind of Conservative.