Boris Johnson’s resignation is a racing certainty

Boris Johnson's resignation in the near future is a racing certainty. Picture: AFP/Getty

Dominic Grieve was one of eight rebel Tories who voted against a brief Conference recess and perhaps he felt five Manchester engagements was a high-risk strategy, but he’ll just be one of many MPs who could drop out of the Fringe events to sit instead in the Parliament of Paralysis, where hot air is in inverse proportion to progress.

Whatever your view about this week’s bitter scenes in the Commons, the only change is the size of the gap between Boris Johnson’s government and his opponents. We are further from unanimity, have less clarity of direction and for all that the overturning of prorogation was apparently to facilitate parliamentary scrutiny, not the slimmest shard of light has been shone on Government intentions.

Much emotion, anger and dismay, but nothing by way of enlightenment; and if wave after wave of attack on Mr Johnson for the undoubted Supreme Court humiliation and the vilification of his response in the Commons have achieved anything it has been to side-line the Brexit Party, with the latest poll putting the Conservatives on course for a General Election majority of 30.

No wonder the opposition parties won’t agree to one.

Away from the Westminster bubble, every conversation about the Whitehall Farce begins and ends with a wearied shrug, and despite each twist this extraordinary saga takes and each new claim about Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s past and present misdeeds, this week has proved once again that MPs do not collectively know what they want. About anything.

Just as observers began to  hint a majority could swing behind a rebrand of ex-PM Theresa May’s rejected Withdrawal Agreement, the events of the week have apparently put off possible Labour backers, if they were ever really serious in the first place. Even if they were, as the previous Parliamentary session has not legally ended the May Agreement cannot be brought back to the Commons without significant alterations, which EU negotiators insist is impossible and have now snubbed initial proposals for  an alternative to the Irish  backstop.

So no agreement about the future, no way of bringing back the only deal the EU is prepared to offer, no majority for Mr Johnson’s attempt to call a General Election and no legal departure without a deal unless the EU says so.

When the Commons convenes next week there will be more questions about who knew what and when, the advice the Government received, why dreadful Boris Johnson is being dreadful and other spleen-venting which will not shock Westminster out of its seizure.

Sure, plenty of ultra-Remainers in ultra-Remain Edinburgh will cheer each new legal tank trap or landmine on the Brexit front line, but what difference do they make? Certainly not produce a solution.

Accelerate independence? Make Labour more electable? The polls say neither. Persuade enough of the 17.4m Leave voters to make Jo Swinson Prime Minister?

Finding Lord Lucan riding Shergar on the Dark Side of the Moon is more likely.

The Commons is unmanageable, Great Britain is effectively ungovernable and with his move for a General Election rejected Mr Johnson’s resignation in the near future is a racing certainty; the question is not if but when and how.

Other than break his promise not to seek an extension to the 31 October departure date as required by the so-called Benn Act, he has few options. With every option a gamble, the only calculation is the odds of success. He might still seek to prorogue parliament a second time, he might resign on 19 October at the eleventh hour before he is legally bound to seek an extension and bank on Parliament failing to produce a majority behind a caretaker Premier to extend the EU departure date.

Even with SNP backing, the chaotic Labour Conference this week has guaranteed it will not be Jeremy Corbyn, so does his cohort of left-wingers swing behind someone like Ken Clarke when the party couldn’t come to an electable position on Brexit?

Will the EU agree to an extension with no guarantee of any change, does Number 10 already know of a quiet EU leader who will veto an extension request before it is made? Or is Sir John Major correct that sorcerer-in-chief Dominic Cummings has another Privy Council spell in his book to suspend the Benn Act?

The only odds narrowing are on No Deal.

While all this will dominate the cafes and bars around Manchester central this week, few will be any the wiser when they troop home after the Prime Minister’s speech on Wednesday.

How different it will feel since last time I was in Manchester for the conference, when Ruth Davidson had just weathered  the final squall in the aftermath of her leadership victory two years previously and was about to become the darling of the Party.

A year out from the independence referendum, only one SNP poll put Yes above 40 per cent but we knew it was essential she had a prominent role, and after the point was made she was handed the key job of introducing the Prime Minster on the final day.

A great spot in a packed room, but tricky to balance impressing the faithful but attempting to overshadow the main event.

Her plea to keep the UK together was a stunning success and heads spun around the room as members who had never heard of her realised this was not a star in the making but one who had arrived.

What followed in the next five years was one of the great success stories in recent British politics, but it was brought to a juddering halt by the failure to deliver Brexit.

Had Britain left the EU on 29 March 29 and Theresa May still been in charge, Davidson could, after her return from maternity leave, have seen out the year and paved the way for an orderly succession.

As it is, the future direction of the Scottish party is just one imponderable in an ocean of them, and any semblance of normality can only return when the EU question is resolved.

A rancorous second referendum will resolve nothing.

Boris Johnson’s resignation is a racing certainty - John McLellan