Political column – February 21

Back in January last year I wrote: "Let me predict here and now the advent of EUKIP (European Union – Keep In Please). It might not necessarily be called that, but it will be a new political force dedicated to stopping, or if that is too late reversing, Brexit."

I even correctly guessed that Chuka Umunna – "disaffected from the Corbyn strand of Labour" – would be involved.

How do I do it, you ask? Well, my secret of such clairvoyance is to make lots and lots of predictions.

You then seize on the one that proves right, and ignore or suppress the rest.

Although there are factors concerned with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and Labour's handling of anti-Semitism, the common factor between all the MPs who have broken from the Labour Party is that they are all in favour of a new referendum on Brexit.

Ironically, their enthusiasm for a People's Vote does not extend to giving their own constituents, who voted for something in the last general election but have now got something else, a people's vote on their action.

Having turned their backs on Labour, it follows that they were all elected on a false prospectus – a manifesto in which they did not believe, or at least now no longer believe in – and the honourable thing would be to put themselves before the voters as Independents in bye-elections.

Some anti-Brexit Conservative MPs have now joined the non-party, throwing in their lot.

Commentators are making a parallel with the advent of the Social Democratic Party in 1981, whose founders (Shirley Williams, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, Roy Jenkins) were giants compared with the never-'eard-of-them founders of the Independent Group.

But maybe the Independent Group should not be compared with the ill-fated SDP, but be seen as the creation of a mirror image of UKIP.

Similarly, UKIP was, and is, with the exception of former and departed leader Nigel Farage, a group of political never-'eard-of-thems. Yet as the momentum of its campaigning grew, it could no longer be ignored by David Cameron.

For Umunna & Co to fight the anti-Brexit cause would be an honest and straightforward position, to be put before the British people to garner votes and (they would hope) create an unstoppable movement underpinned by demonstrable popular support.

Yet should they not have the guts to seek an electoral mandate, they will owe their profile and platform entirely to a mantle gained through standing as Labour or Tory candidates in the last general election.

And instead of being recognised by history as the founding mothers and fathers of a new political movement, they will just be a transient flounce.