Brexit farce: Comedy of errors

It is 50 years since Britain’s Monty Python comedy team’s Flying Circus took off on TV and it is proving as popular as ever, with new devotees watching all four series and 45 episodes on Netflix and arguing about the best sketch — was it the Dead Parrot one or The Ministry Of Silly Walks?

Nowadays, the equivalent to that sense of the absurd is coming not from comedians but from deadly serious politicians in the British House of Commons. The Brexit roadshow meanders on and on and has now taken on Monty Pythonesque dimensions.

Which is their best sketch? Was it the look on David Cameron’s face three years ago when he learned he had lost the EU referendum? Or the moment when Theresa May became the biggest vote loser in parliament? How about the petulant Boris Johnson refusing to sign a letter asking for an extension to the Brexit deadline of October 31?

All of those sketches would be worthy of the Monty Python team. The pity of it, though, is that there is nothing funny about Brexit — and there never was.