So, to believe the story that Gove, Cummings and Johnson have spun between them, you must now believe several contradictory claims. But no intellectual contortions are too humiliating for some Conservative MPs and pundits, who dutifully repeat whatever they're told.
That's the weird thing about modern Conservatism. The rhetoric is all about "standing on your own two feet", "going it alone", "freedom" and "independence". But in practice, they just do what they're told, however preposterous the order may be.
There must be a queue of Tory MPs anxiously phoning the whips, asking "which of these contradictory lies are we promoting today?".
