We are living in a parallel world where the BeLeave campaign's illegal finances don't even matter. Here's why

When Vote Leave’s criminal act of generosity was first reported last year, Boris tweeted that the claim was 'utterly ludicrous'. Today, he says nothing. Ditto for Gove

If a genie granted me one technological wish, it would be this. Whenever anyone alighted on a column such as this, their smartphone, tablet or laptop would emit a puff of gas that caused total amnesia about all the previous ones.

Ad chuck-your-guts-up-until-the-throat’s-red-raw nauseam, you’ve read bozos like me reference fantasy fiction to express the Brexincredulity you feel yourself.

But seasoned by the ritual apology is the reflection that already, this embryonic Tory leadership campaign makes Alice In Wonderland look like Coronation Street.

Not modern day Corrie, with its sensationalist storylines. Mid-1960s Corrie, when the melodrama peaked with Ena Sharples, sipping milk stout in the Rovers Return, outraging Uncle Albert Tatlock into spilling his port and lemon by observing that Ken Barlow isn’t as green as he’s cabbage-looking.

I can barely type the first six words of the next paragraph for shame at their suffocating staleness, but …

In a vaguely normal political reality, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove would be lower in the betting list than Willie Whitelaw, RAB Butler and others whose leadership claims are undermined by the length of time they’ve been deceased.

Yet here we are in the underworld they created, with their whoppers about the paradise awaiting us outside the EU, and the Sunshine Boys of Brexit head the market. Boris is Betfair’s 9-2 favourite, with Gove next on 6-1.

Those figures make further comment on this parallel universe surreality superfluous. But if you are neurotic, and want a belt as backstop to this hideous pair of braces, Jeremy Hunt is the third favourite.

The latest threat to the Gove-Johnson axis is their central involvement in the Vote Leave campaign; the one that illegally funnelled hundreds of thousands to BeLeave, the offshoot that falsely claimed to be independent, and engaged in campaign practices that would have voided the referendum result in a functioning democracy.

When Vote Leave’s criminal act of generosity was first reported last year, Boris tweeted that the claim was “utterly ludicrous”. Today, he says nothing.

Ditto for Gove. I haven’t been in a room with him often, which is a source of piercing regret. But on the several occasions I have (a book launch, a friend’s 60th, etc) he has never failed, although unasked, to make a speech. Gove would make a florid oration at the opening of a bowel.

Yet invited to comment on Vote Leave abandoning its appeal against the Electoral Commission’s finding of illegality, which some will interpret as an admission of guilt, not a dickie bird.

The consolation is that if he or Boris is elected King of the Undead, he is unlikely to survive in No 10 for long. A sensational poll published today finds Jeremy Corbyn’s ragtag army surging from behind into a five-point lead.

Such a violent, sudden swing is more than statistical noise. It probably rules out – incredibly so, recalling what Chris Grayling said on Friday – an imminent general election. These Tories are indisputably turkeys. But less than ever after such a laxative poll will they vote for a Christmas likely to make Corbyn as jolly as Santa.

If a snap election is off the table, and if as reported the Tories would split asunder should Theresa May accept Ken Clarke’s indicative vote for a customs union, the possibilities are narrowed to two: no deal or a People’s Vote.

The odds are even, making this the most petrifying life-or-death coin flip since Javier Bardem tossed a quarter to decide a shopkeeper’s fate in No Country For Old Men.

At 4am this morning, during another bout of Brexit-related insomnia, I had a dangerously large punt on no deal for two reasons.

One is that it now strikes me as a gravely realistic prospect. The EU 27, or enough of them to matter given that anyone can veto an extension, seems genuinely prepared and willing to take the pain to rid themselves of this turbulent imbecile of a country.

The other is that the act of me backing anything makes it exceedingly unlikely to happen.

And this one still might not. If Margaret Beckett’s indicative vote – to pass May’s deal, but require it to be confirmed or otherwise by a second referendum – returns to the Commons on Monday, enough Tory MPs on either side of the divide will surely accept it as the least appalling compromise and allow it to pass.

There is one other possibility. If it doesn’t pass, or May ignores it even if it does, on 10 April the PM (if she still is PM) will have a binary choice of her own. Revoke Article 50. Or by inaction enable no deal.

It would be a choice between destroying her party and wrecking her country.

You needn’t suspect that she’d opt for the latter to gauge the horror of this dystopian hellscape. Nor need you know that a DUP MP plotted with an ERG MP (both sadly unnamed) last week to steal the mace – in the absence of which the Commons cannot sit – to guarantee we crashed out last Friday. They couldn’t discover where it is stored overnight, and the plan died an untimely death.

Gorgeous vignette of the madness of the moment though that is, it will warrant barely a footnote in the histories of tomorrow.

But one chunky chapter wants devoting to this astonishing fact. When April Fool’s Day, 2019, dawned – and please join me in wishing Chris Grayling a happy birthday (and the one happy return: to oblivion) – the twin architects of Brexit were the favourites for the shortest tenure of any English-speaking national leader since 1841, when William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia in the White House a calendar month after entering it.