Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit “deal” is a deviously engineered, triple-lock trap which will leave Britain stuck for all eternity in the European Union, an anonymous civil servant has confirmed.

The civil servant, writing at Brexit Central, describes May’s Withdrawal Agreement as an “Orwellian misnomer”. Far from helping Britain to leave the EU it keeps it perpetually bound in chains.

He or she goes on to detail the three locks which have been cunningly inserted into the Withdrawal Agreement by legalistically-minded civil servants who know exactly how to sabotage Brexit.

First is the transition period, lasting until at least 2021.

We must hand over an estimated £39 billion for nothing, be bound by EU law and take orders from an unelected Joint Committee operating under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Will the EU27 agree an equitable free trade agreement before the end of 2020? Unlikely, since all the goodies they want in the “future partnership” are set out in the Northern Ireland backstop, which kicks in automatically on 1st January 2021…

Second is the backstop.

Not only does the backstop carve out Northern Ireland as an EU province and set a border in the Irish Sea, it creates a partial “customs union” that requires us to implement EU trade tariffs and policy with no decision-making powers. Under highly restrictive “non-regression clauses”, the UK also agrees to implement all EU environmental, competition, state aid and tax harmonisation laws, with the unelected Joint Committee and the ECJ once again able to punish us for any perceived backsliding.

Third is the “future partnership”.

Anyone expecting the EU27 to give up the immense advantages they gain under the backstop is delusional. Retaining tariff-free access to the UK market and effective control of UK trade and competition policy must be nirvana for them. To ensure they reap the full benefit, there is the third and final lock in the Withdrawal Agreement. Unless we agree to a “future partnership” as set out in the political declaration, the backstop will endure in perpetuity.

And this is the deal not just Remainers like Theresa May and Philip Hammond but even lapsed Brexiteers like Michael Gove assure us we must sign up to if we are to have any hope of securing Brexit.

“No deal is better than a bad deal,” May once assured us.

By what token is this abject surrender not a “bad deal”?

Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

If so, then I heartily recommend this debut offering in the Sun from Quentin Letts, the columnist who left the Daily Mail in protest at the pro-Remain policies of its new editor.

Politics in Britain at present, and across the whole of Europe for that matter, is an open, sloshing bucket of inflammable petrol. We don’t need any sparks. Since the days of Oliver Cromwell, Parliament has existed for two reasons — to represent the views of the people and to pass laws. In the first respect, it is failing lamentably. You do not have to be a politics wonk to see that Remainer Tory MPs are combining with Labour and other Opposition parties to try to neutralise the referendum result. It was the largest ever vote in British history and 300 careerist MPs think they can block it.

Please can we have our democracy back?