Boris is in danger of losing everything but could still win big

Boris Johnson is, of course, a half American adventurer, which reminds me of Rab Butler's view of Churchill in 1940.

"Rab said he thought that the good clean tradition of English politics, that of Pitt as opposed to Fox, had been sold to the greatest adventurer of modern political history. He had tried earnestly and long to persuade Halifax to accept the Premiership, but he had failed. He believed this sudden coup of Winston and his rabble was a serious disaster and an unnecessary one: the 'pass has been sold' by Mr. C[hamberlain], Lord Halifax and Oliver Stanley. They had weakly surrendered to a half-breed American whose main support was that of inefficient but talkative people of a similar type. " Sir John 'Jock' Colville's diary entry (10 May 1940).

Boris has much more Latin and Greek than Churchill but he is certainly a Fox, not a Pitt the Younger. Fox was lovable but he is not good role model.

What a difference five days makes.

On Tuesday when the House of Commons returned and Boris gave it his statement on the G7 Summit he gave a masterful and funny performance. The country seemed to be about to feel the smack of firm government (what the Daily Telegraph famously said, in January 1956, it was waiting for Sir Anthony Eden to provide). 

On Wednesday Boris was pretty bad at Prime Minister's Question Time, slightly undergraduate and slightly seedy, used a four letter word, made a very tired joke about Jeremy Corbyn being a chlorinated chicken and allowed Jeremy Corbyn to get the better of him. 


He has never been good speaking in the House. He is not a House of Commons man.

Then everything unravelled. Tory and Labour MPs, enabled by a thoroughly unconstitutional decision by the Speaker, got a bill through the Commons preventing the Prime Minister leaving the EU without a deal on 31 October. 21 distinguished Conservative MPs, all but one former ministers, voted against the Government and were therefore deprived of the whip, meaning out of the party, former Conservatives. 

It had become increasingly clear to everyone that Boris was not telling the truth by claiming not to want an election and that he was playing an elaborate game. Ken Clarke congratulated the Prime Minister on 

'keeping such a straight face while being so disingenuous'. 

Disingenuous is the Parliamentary word for lying.

The bill could have been prevented from passing the upper house or from receiving royal assent but Boris decided not to attempt this, thinking Jeremy Corbyn would agree an election in mid October. He did not. Today, after two days of pondering, Jeremy Corbyn says he will not agree to an election until the EU has agreed to delay Brexit, which sounds reasonable to the man in the street. It makes sense to me, though I know he is being thoroughly disingenuous too. 

According to the Times today, rebel Tory MPs (I am sure I detect Dominic Grieve's hand) and opposition leaders agreed with European leaders before they published their bill that a request for a three-month further Brexit extension would be granted.

Sir Christopher Meyer, who was British Ambassador in Moscow, calls this collusion with foreign powers. So do others.

The cross-party group also has plans to take Boris Johnson to court if he does not obey the law. But though the court could and no doubt would issue an injunction, requiring the Prime Minister to ask for an extension of the Brexit deadline, he says he will not do it. 

The court would put him in prison if he did not comply, but I do not see how the court can make him do anything. And if he does not and does not resign we automatically leave the EU. 

But the cabinet would step in before he went to prison or, failing that, the Queen 

But this is in the future. What happens now?

Is it too late to advise the Queen not to assent to this bill, which passed by the House of Lords yesterday? If I were the Prime Minister I'd prefer to do that than go to prison.

Boris is in office but not in power. He cannot call an election without the vote of 434 MPs. He could resign but I don't think he will do that. If he does, he will I imagine advise the Queen to send for Jeremy Corbyn and in the inevitable election hope to get a big victory. But that is a very risky strategy. 

Boris expected, since Corbyn will not provide the votes to call an election, would be able to repeal the Fixed Terms Parliaments Act with a majority of one, but he does not have a majority at all. He thought he could do it with the agreement of Nicola Sturgeon, leader in Edinburgh of the Scottish Nationalists. She wants an election in order to capture all the Scottish Conservative seats which Boris's policy looks like losing, but she has been persuaded by her Westminster MPs not to agree to an election yet.

Interestingly, I am sure she would be happy with leaving with no deal, if she could blame it on England, because she only cares about Scottish independence, which she thinks No Deal would facilitate.  I think Jeremy Corbyn would be happy with No Deal too, if he could blame it on the Tories. It would enable him to do all sorts of far left things with the British economy.

All this could still go very well for Boris. Labour think that forcing him not to keep his promise to take the UK out of the EU 'do or die' he will lose the public's respect, but it seems to me more likely that Labour will.

Dominic Cummings, who is planning Boris's strategy, told a meeting of political advisers last night to hold their nerve, warning that if they had thought last week was chaos it was “only just the beginning”.