THREAD: Funny how more ppl still haven’t sussed out what is going on when Brexiters behave embarrassingly in full view of the cameras (latest: Johnson gurning and stretching during his press conference with Varadkar today). 1/8
They👏are👏doing👏it👏deliberately👏 to distract attention from what their opponents are saying. If you are reacting to what they are doing, you’re not paying as much attention to the important & carefully argued message that is being shared alongside them. 2/8
Exact same trick the other day when Rees-Mogg lolled about in Parliament during the debate on the Benn-Burt bill & the other side were really laying down some zingers. (Or when IDS was picking his noise.) Can many ppl remember what was actually being said in the meantime. 3/8
This dawned on me a few months ago when Ken Clarke was delivering a blistering speech demolishing the May govt for its ineptitude, and everybody on Twitter (plus of course Mail, Sun, etc) were talking about fact that some pro-Brexit non-entity had ‘fallen asleep‘ behind him. 4/8
“But it makes them look ridiculous! It only alienates people.” Yeah: ppl who think like you and need no convincing Brexit is a terrible idea. What they’re doing atm is firing up the base (who admire bad behaviour in HoC or next to Irish PM), distract & run down the clock. 5/8
They don’t care about their reputation among “Remoaning elites” who get upset by their behaviour. Keeping such ppl onside doesn’t serve their overriding objective of getting Brexit over the line regardless of the damage done to the country’s political culture & institutions. 6/8
What they’re doing is the visual equivalent of the tactic described in this earlier thread (referring to the deliberate ploy of coming out with ridiculous, spurious or offensive arguments to distract us, tie us up in knots and run down the clock). 7/8
This is really basic, guys. Yet we keep falling for it. (8/8) 
tl;dr Brexiters deliberately make fools of themselves in front of the cameras when they are losing an argument really badly, and are afraid that the other side’s words/ideas will cut through into reporting and social media so they neutralise it
