Why is the Europe minister refighting the Brexit battle?

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister for European Union relations, was sent into the den of Leaverdom yesterday.

- JOHN RENTOUL

He talked about the government's plans to ease trade with Britain's neighbours in a speech at The Spectator and in conversation with Michael Gove, the magazine's editor and co-leader of the Brexit campaign in the referendum nine years ago.

Much of the speech was devoted to an attack on Nigel Farage, who has dominated the news agenda for much of the summer, and who is the main threat to Labour's hopes of reelection in four years' time. Thomas-Symonds accepted that Reform is the "real opposition" - because "the Conservative Party is just not on the pitch".

What did Thomas-Symonds say about Farage?

The Cabinet Office minister had a dig at Farage's cushy pension as a former member of the European parliament before accusing him of the politics of division: "Aside from his pension packet, Nigel Farage can't bring himself to have any relationship with the EU. Unable to recognise what is actually the best choice for working families across Britain but also because Nigel Farage wants Britain to fail. His model of politics feeds on it. When British businesses fail, when family bills go up, he offers the easy answers, dividing communities, stoking anger. We reject that. Emphatically."