Chris Moncrieff: Can Theresa May survive Brexit storm?

But it will not be all plain sailing. There will be squalls along the way and the water will get distinctly rougher before the voyage is completed.

The hard core of “Remainers”, who ludicrously wanted to see a rerun of the referendum, seem to have quietly disappeared from the scene, but other anti-Brexiteers may well do their utmost to impede progress. What is more, there are cracks appearing in the Cabinet itself.

Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is prominent in the “soft Brexit” lobby, is reportedly appalled by the “bull in a china shop” approach of the three Brexit Ministers, David Davis, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, and Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary.

May will need all the authority at her command – which is plentiful – to steer her policy through acrimonious Cabinet meetings lying ahead.

Hammond is fearful that a too-aggressive approach towards foreign leaders, as well as Brussels grandees, may be hugely damaging to the negotiations. He advocates a softly-softly approach if Britain is to get what it wants, rather than table thumping.

This is the biggest constitutional upheaval Britain has faced for generations. If it goes wrong, May might well be bidding goodbye to Number 10.

AT long last, it seems, someone is getting to grips with Britain’s largely unmonitored overseas aid programme.

Priti Patel, the lively new International Development Secretary, has made clear that she is not prepared to spend money in this way simply to meet David Cameron’s promise of 0.7 per cent of national income.

At present, the bill stands at a massive £12bn a year of taxpayers’ money, with no certainty that some large sums are reaching the right people.

For instance, it has now been shown that large amounts have been reaching Palestinian terrorists, and paying for the building of a £250m airport on the island of St Helena which is too dangerous for aircraft to use.

What has been happening is that late in the fiscal year, some money has been handed out by this department to achieve the 0.7 per cent target set by Cameron. That is now likely to end, with a source close to Patel saying they will not be spending money simply for the sake of it.

It was almost criminal to throw away money in this unchecked way. The cash should, for a start, be used to feed the starving in large areas of Africa. Every penny should be monitored from Whitehall to the mouths of the hungry and deprived.

I USED to think former Prime Minister David Cameron was foolish, intemperate and counter-productive in describing Ukip members as “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly”.

How wrong I was. He was spot on.

Now, the more I look at his words, the more I marvel at the moderation of his language.

You now have Ukip wandering about in a daze like a battered and defeated army rather than a political party which got just what it was campaigning for in the EU referendum.

The last leader survived just 18 days before throwing in the towel.

This farcical situation was immediately followed by a pantomime brawl in involving two more leadership contenders, Steven Woolfe and Mike Hookem, after which one of them collapsed and was detained in hospital.

They should put them on the stage, billed as the biggest laugh in town – The Fruitcake Follies?

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Opposition, should get his facts right. He says he is proud that two of the great offices of state, shadow foreign secretary (Emily Thornberry) and shadow home secretary (Diane Abbott) are held by women.

Well, generally, Opposition shadow posts are not offices of state. Those who hold them get no more pay than the most humble backbencher.

The only two Opposition front-benchers in the Commons who get more than the routine Parliamentary salary are the Opposition leader himself and the Opposition chief whip (Nick Brown has now replaced Doncaster’s Rosie Winterton).

Corbyn should do his homework.

Chris Moncrieff is a former political editor of the Press Association.