Beth Rigby, political editor

MPs returned to Westminster this week in poor spirits, anxiety levels ratcheting up once again as they grapple with the Brexit paralysis consuming our government, parliament and political discourse.

The painstaking business of Brexit picked up where it left off before the Easter recess. Cross-party talks, triggered by the prime minister in early April after her deal was blocked by parliament for the third time, resumed. The negotiating teams remain gridlocked.

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Conservative backbenchers are still plotting against the prime minister as leadership contenders quietly build their teams and canvass support. Labour MPs are still rowing amongst themselves over whether to back a second referendum.


But there is a new element to proceedings that is serving to both intensify Tory plotting while also completely closing off any glimmer of hope for cross-party talks: the return of Conservative scourge and populist-in-chief Nigel Farage.

The former UKIP leader burst back onto the national stage in technicolour last week with his Brexit Party bandwagon, banging the drum of betrayal as he urged voters to punish the political class in the EU elections on 23 May.

Within days of the launch, Mr Farage's fledgling party was predicted to top the polls, at the Conservatives' expense.

If he prevails, it will be only the second time in modern British history that neither the Conservatives nor Labour have come top in a national poll - the first time was in 2014, again at the hands of Nigel Farage in the last lot of EU elections.

The spectre of the Tories being trounced a month from now in a national election by their old nemesis is not just demoralising for local activists and MPs, but frightening. It plays into the narrative that Mrs May's government is collapsing and the Conservatives are about to be cast into the political wilderness.

Theresa May's allies will no doubt argue that European elections are not a good guide to what happens in a General Election. After all, UKIP's "political earthquake" in the 2014 local and then EU elections did not translate into success in the 2015 general election, where it took 12% of the vote but Mr Farage failed to win his South Thanet seat. Two years and one EU referendum later, UKIP was a spent force in the election ballot of 2017.

But that was before the Conservatives broke their Brexit pledge to the British people. Mrs May has pitched her Tories as the party of Brexit and she has failed to deliver what an overwhelming percentage of her supporters and members voted for. This will be the Achilles heal for the Tories in any poll - local or national - from now until Brexit is delivered.

A survey by the ConservativeHome website found that three in five Tory members planned to vote for Mr Farage's party in the European elections. This state of affairs cannot continue, which is why the officers of the 1922 Conservative backbench committee are now holding talks about whether to change the rules to allow another confidence vote in the prime minister in the coming weeks.

The collapsing support for the Conservatives at the hands of Mr Farage's Brexit Party serves the cause of Boris Johnson perfectly.

Deeply unpopular with many of his colleagues in parliament and the remain wing of the party, it nevertheless reminds Tory MPs that party members and many Conservative voters will expect a eurosceptic prime minster next time around to secure their support.

It also reminds those MPs, particularly in marginal seats, that they need a leader with wider appeal - even if they don't like him much - if the party is going to hold onto power in such straitened times.

The rise of Nigel Farage also helps Mr Johnson because it kills off any prospect of a cross-party deal to get Brexit over the line.

For Mr Corbyn, the idea of helping Mrs May to deliver Brexit in order to avoid demolition in the EU elections is something he cannot really countenance. No opposition leader who wants the keys to No 10 would throw a drowning prime minister a lifeline. Surely it is better to create maximum chaos in the hope it precipitates a general election.

It will, in all likelihood, precipitate a leadership election first, with Mr Johnson now pole position to win over the grassroots with his promise of a harder Brexit.

But Mr Corbyn must know that there is a very good chance a general election would soon follow. A victorious Mr Johnson might have no option but to go to the polls if a handful of Tories quit the party in disgust at his elevation.

And as for Mr Farage, a hard Brexiteer in No 10 will probably render his Brexit Party somewhat obsolete. But it's a far more attractive prospect for the self-appointed godfather of Brexit than the current incumbent. I think he'd chalk that up as a win.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Greg Milam - The US death penalty is bizarre and arbitrary