The cheer on Question Time that will terrify the UK Political Establishment, by Brendan O’Neill.

Fiona Bruce asked her if she meant we should pursue ‘No Deal’. ‘Yes’, said Oakeshott and there it was, instantly, contagiously, the loudest cheer I can remember hearing from a Question Time audience. …

That will chill the bones of the political establishment. Which will rattle a commentariat that ceaselessly pumps out columns on how awful No Deal would be. For this cheer — from an audience in the largely working-class, Labour-leaning city of Derby — was a stark reminder that there are people out there, a great many people, who do not share the political class’s fear of No Deal. …

For the past few days, political bigwigs, loads of MPs, business leaders and supposedly radical Corbynistas — what a bizarre mix! — have been imploring Theresa May to take No Deal off the table. And yet here was a section of working-class Britain actively cheering No Deal. …

This boils down to saying that the plebs don’t know what they are doing; they’re killing themselves with their own stupidity and it is down to us, the enlightened folk, to save them from themselves. Stop this. The support for No Deal is actually entirely rational. People know what ‘taking No Deal off the table’ really means — it means taking Brexit off the table. People feel that No Deal is now code for Brexit itself, and that anything that restricts the UK’s ability to walk away from the EU will threaten Brexit in its entirety. They are dead right to feel this.

hat-tip Stephen Neil