Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage’s recent support for a second EU referendum is being hailed as a political master stroke by many commentators. “People might like to try and dismiss him as an egotistical, deluded, drunken rabble rouser with an over inflated opinion of himself, but with this apparent flip-flop he’s revealed himself as a brilliant strategist,” enthuses Trevor Krapps, political editor of Brexit-supporting tabloid The Shite. “Trust me, those remoaners revelling in his supposed inconsistency on the issue of a second referendum will soon be laughing on the other sides of their faces.” Farage’s apparent conversion to the cause of a second referendum has coincided with the implosion of UKIP’s current leadership, with the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) returning a ‘no confidence’ vote in regard of current leader Henry Bolton. “Believe me, it’s no coincidence that UKIP is in crisis – it is all part of Farage’s master plan,” chuckles Krapp. “Those poor saps – the NEC, Bolton, the media – don’t grasp the extent to which Farage has played them – he’s clearly a genius!” According to Krapp, Farage’s alleged manoeuvrings are designed to save Brexit from the incompetence of the Tory government by putting him firmly back in control of the process. “Brexit is in imminent danger of collapsing – there’s already talk of agreeing to the ‘Norwegian Model’, which would leave us having to agree to free movement and other EU regulations in order to maintain access to the Single Market post-Brexit,” Krapp points out, “In which case we might as well not leave the EU at all. There’s no way that such a deal could ever be acceptable to true Brexiteers! Clearly, the only way to save Brexit is to start the process all over again!”

The need to restart Brexit is what lies behind Farage’s sudden enthusiasm for a second referendum, the political correspondent believes. “It’s quite obvious that right now, with the government’s appalling mishandling of the whole Brexit process, that a new referendum could well reverse the original result and commit us to staying in the EU,” he argues. “Which would mean that Farage could start afresh with a campaign to leave the EU – he’d be at the forefront of any new Brexit movement, dictating its aims and strategy!” Krapp contends that the problems afflicting current attempts to actually implement Brexit are down to the fact that its execution has been placed in the hands of the wrong people. “Just look at the kind of people Theresa May has put in charge of Brexit: buffoons like Boris Johnson and David Davies. Too many of them who have only hitched their themselves to Brexit in order to further their own political ambitions. They aren’t true believers like Farage,” he says. “So it makes perfect sense to restart the whole process from scratch: get us back in the EU, so that we can spread more stories about how awful it is so as to build up a head of steam for a third referendum. Believe me, if Farage is allowed to run the ‘Leave’ campaign on his own terms, then this time Brexit will record a landslide victory! All we’d have to do then is make sure that he was put in charge of the subsequent negotiations!”

Krapps also believes that the destruction of UKIP – for decades the standard bearer of the anti-EU campaign – is a crucial part of Farage’s scheme. “Post referendum and post-Farage, UKIP , with its rotating roster of ridiculous leaders, has become irrelevant,” he explains. “It allowed itself to become sidelined after the referendum victory, instead of being at the heart of the Brexit process, it has found itself isolated. With its main raison d’etre apparently fulfilled, it has no purpose!” UKIP has become such a joke, Krapps believes, that it needs to be superseded by a new political vehicle to drive the cause of Brexit. Indeed, both Farage and former millionaire UKIP backer Aaron Banks have recently spoken openly about the possibility of founding a new political party dedicated to delivering Brexit. “Obviously, such a party – inevitably led by Farage – would only make sense if Brexit wasn’t happening – a post second referendum world, in other words,” opines the journalist. “Hence the need to undermine the existing UKIP by destroying the credibility of its current leader!”

Henry Bolton, the incumbent UKIP leader, is currently under fire from his own party after leaving his wife and starting a relationship with a younger woman. A younger woman who, it transpired, had made racist comments about Prince Harry’s fiancée Meghan Markle on social media. “It’s all so obviously a set up,” confides Krapps. “According to my sources, the woman Bolton took up with is actually a professional Eva Braun impersonator – she’s been in several films and regularly participates in re-enactments of the last days of Hitler in the bunker, (these things are quite popular with those Nazi re-enactment groups, I’m told). It was easy to hook them up apparently – he’s a sucker for a woman with an accent: just look at his last three wives – two Russians and a Dane!”

Other commentators have rejected Krapp’s analysis of the situation and suggested that Farage’s motivation has less to do with ‘rescuing’ Brexit than it has with self-aggrandisement. “It isn’t just UKIP which has been rendered irrelevant by the referendum result, but Farage’s whole career,” says Dirk Brick, political editor of the Sunday Bystander. “He really thought that he was going to get some kind of proper political career, or at least a knighthood, out of supposedly delivering the result for Brexit in the referendum, but instead all he has to show for it is a gig as a presenter on a right wing talk radio station. The only way he can put himself back in the driving seat is by trying to reverse the referendum decision he campaigned for by calling for a second vote! Not only that, but he’s probably just realised that once we’ve left the EU< he won’t be an MEP any more – I’m betting his gig as a shock jock pays a lot less than his MEP salary and all those expenses he claims.” Mr Farage himself has been unavailable for comment on any of the allegations made either by Krapps or Brick. A spokesperson for Mr Bolton’s former girlfriend has denied that she has ever impersonated Eva Braun or any other deceased fascist dictator’s wife or mistress.