Michel Barnier rubbishing Theresa May’s Brexit plan will end with the EU reduced to rubble

THE EU says “non” to our realistic ­Chequers offer. It won’t budge. So be it.

Brussels must imagine that total inflexibility somehow shores it up against the tsunami of Euroscepticism across the continent.

But it will rightly be blamed if the no-deal that looks increasingly inevitable inflicts as much economic hardship there as the IMF predicts.

The Irish won’t toast PM Leo Varadkar’s infantile sabre-rattling either, since they will be hit hardest. A wiser man would beg Michel Barnier to settle.

Millions of rational people can now see that Theresa May made an offer as generous as she could afford politically and the EU rubbished it. It still just cannot imagine us outside its grip.

Why should the Tories now bother selling the Chequers plan to the public?

Every focus should instead be on making no-deal as painless as possible.

Lags’ leg-up

WITH crime soaring it sounds insane to talk of reducing prison numbers and ­giving inmates “hope” — but Justice ­Secretary David Gauke has a point.

There is an epidemic of reoffending. Convicts emerge with no prospects from the violent, drug-infested cesspits that pass for our jails — and return to crime.

Too many are pointlessly given short stretches during which they learn only how to become hardened villains. And too many women are jailed, full stop.

So we like Mr Gauke’s focus on education and rehabilitation. It’s not The Sun going soft — it’s about a regime that cuts crime by giving lags a new start.

But it is vital Mr Gauke does not overlook punishment and deterrence. Our jails need more staff to restore order and eliminate drugs and illicit mobiles.

They should be austere places where “luxuries” or early release are hard-earned by productive behaviour — and to which prisoners fear to return.

Taint of Corbyn

IF Labour’s moderate MPs cannot find the guts to abandon their toxic party now, they forfeit the right to anyone’s respect.

Corbyn’s Labour is institutionally racist. It has shunned international definitions of anti-Semitism and written its own, allowing some anti-Jew prejudice.

No wonder the Jewish community fears a Corbyn government. One Labour MP accused Corbyn to his face of being an “anti-Semite and a racist”. But will she or any others resign his whip?

Will Yvette Cooper, Liam Byrne, Chuka Umunna and the rest still campaign for this man, and his Marxist shadow chancellor, to run the country?

MP John Woodcock DID quit this week, branding Corbyn a security risk who tolerates racism.

When, for the rest, is enough enough? They will never seize “their” party back from the hard left.

It taints all those who remain in it.