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Three years ago the Spanish socialist leader Pedro Sanchez was booted out after leading his party to a heavy defeat in the 2015 general election.



Yesterday he took the PSOE to victory in an election which saw the conservative Popular Party go from 137 seats to just 66 as they shed votes to the Citizens Party and the far right Vox.



Things are not looking much better for the Conservatives in this country.



The latest forecast suggests they could lose more than 800 council seats in this Thursday’s council elections .

For anyone on the left it is difficult not to enjoy the irony of watching the Tories implode over the Brexit.



Back in those simpler, pre-Brexit days a young Tory leader called David Cameron decided the best way to stop his party banging on about Europe and to head off the threat posed by Nigel Farage was to settle the issue through a referendum.

(Image: Getty Images)





This took on a renewed urgency when UKIP triumphed at the 2014 European elections.



The referendum was supposed to have spelled the end of Farage, united the Conservatives and banished for a generation the debate about our membership of the EU.



Now Farage is back with his new Brexit Party and, if the polls are to be believed, on course to win next month’s European elections should they take place.



Of the many mistakes made by the Cameron – and it is an error still being repeated by centre right parties across Europe as the Spanish result illustrates – was his calculation that the best way to deal with populist radical right movements is to try to accommodate them rather than confront them.



A party which is confident in its own values would protect its flanks, not pusillanimously try to tack further to the right.



The problem for the Tories is they now lack any confidence in their beliefs. Hence the deep divisions on how to tackle the threat posed by Farage.



Allies of Theresa May are hoping the looming disaster of the European elections will persuade the Brexiteer diehards to back her withdrawal agreement and therefore avert the drubbing at the ballot box.



Yet many Brexiteers have looked at Farage and concluded the party’s salvation rests on it adopting his hard Brexit agenda.

(Image: X03696)





One thing is certain, there is now even less incentive for Jeremy Corbyn to help the Conservatives out in the cross-party Brexit talks which resume this afternoon .

Labour is not without its own problems on Brexit .



The party’s ruling National Executive Committee will meet tomorrow to agree the manifesto for the European elections amid divisions on how strenuously they should endorse a second referendum.



Jeremy Corbyn is still trying to hedge his bets as he continues to try to appeal to Leave and Remain voters.



Tom Watson with the support of the GMB, Usdaw and Unison is pushing for the manifesto to endorse explicitly a second vote.



Today's agenda:



Talks resume between Labour and the Conservatives on Brexit.



2.30pm – Damian Hinds takes Education questions in the Commons.



6pm - Weekly meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party.



10pm (approx) – Labour’s Rushanara Ali holds adjournment debate on Government funding for removing cladding from private tower blocks.



What I am reading:



Kevin Maguire is not impressed with Boris Johnson



and



Bloomberg's Rob Hutton on Tory divisions on how to take on Farage .