• IT is worth reflecting that with the cross-party talks going nowhere and the government needing to pivot back to the hardline Brexiteers to try to get a majority, the only Brexit likely to be on offer is one that Labour will find completely unacceptable and will have to do everything in its power to block.

A vote for a smaller party on the sole basis that this will strengthen the remain cause thus relies on a distinction with no practical difference to the outcome, but with considerable risk.

Labour are defending four seats in London and the fourth placed candidate, Laura Parker, is on record as supporting a second referendum and campaigning to remain. It is her place that is most at risk if votes are diverted from Labour to Change UK, the Liberal Democrats or the Greens.

Since it is impossible to predict exactly how the votes will be split, the perverse result of a drift from Labour could be to hand this seat to the Brexit party, completely the reverse of the intended result.

All the polls indicate that the leading contenders in this election are Labour, who have a clear and progressive manifesto, and the Brexit party, who don’t appear to have one at all, other than the obviously flawed proposition that while a first referendum is the epitome of democracy, a second one, some years down the track, is somehow undemocratic.

What we do know about them, however, is that they owe their existence to a leader who has the worst participation record of any of the 751 members of the European Parliament, who has a history of stirring up anti-immigrant feeling and who believes in far right conspiracy theories.

Anyone who contributes to their success, whether inadvertently or not, will be adding to the revival of ultra-nationalist populism across Europe. This must be resisted at all costs. We know where it leads.

DR ANTHONY ISAACS
NW3